ELITE: Sam Dulledge
Right, this is breaking every rule in my own book by me doing back-to-back Elite reviews. But unfortunately there isn't another journalist free to do the Elite review. So here I am, stepping into the breach to conduct yet another review!
Reigning champ Justinas started from pole for the Valencian round 5 of Elite, with rival Toygun loitering in 3rd over a second behind. Double champ Leandro Sereno started 16th, whilst Season 28 challenger Wojcech Uzikowski started from 23rd after what has been some disappointing races for the Polish manager. Peter Alan started the race in 40th and last position, 11.307s behind Justinas' pole times.
Everyone was away cleanly at the start, a testament to how sensible these managers are at the top end of the GPRO ladder. Justinas had already opened a 1 second gap to 2nd placed Aleksej Sutkin, with Toygun a further 3 tenth behind. Aleksey Ogedov dropped 23 places at the start due to his wet tyres and was down in 40th position by lap 3. He was obviously gambling on a wet setup to give him the time back when everyone came in for wets. Nuno Vincente was also doing the same, and had dropped to 39th on lap 5.
Meanwhile, Justinas was comfortably setting good pace, now 4.4s ahead of Sutkin on lap 6. Toygun now had Mindaugas Sarocka to worry about from behind aswell as trying to pass Aleksej.
The rain came on lap 7 and 33 of the 40 runners immediately went into the pits. This rain was to stay for the rest of the race. Coming back out on lap 8, Toygun had managed to jump Aleksej Sutkin and was now focussing on trying to close that gap to Justinas, the championship once again being the motivation for both these drivers.
However, Justinas just seemed too quick for Toygun and the race on this hard to overtake track quickly became a procession. A late panic in the race saw Toygun pit on lap 44 after what seemed to be a fuel miscalculation, but he managed to regain 2nd in the final few laps thanks to Sutkin's smoke.
This race was also the final race in round 1 of the Elite championship cup. Justinas, Sagatas, Praudins, Domarev, Kaminski, Sarocka, Sutkin, Demydov, Ruseckas, Pina, Uzikowski and Toygun all won their first round draws 3-0, with Sereno, Marchewka, Gardiner and Neves all winning 2-1. Heidi Aareskoski was knocked out by Kaminski in her return to the Elite cup.
The most interesting of the 8 second-round draws in my opinion is Pina-Ruseckas. Pina has been on the way up in recent races, beating Ruseckas for the first time in round 5, and has even outqualified Justinas for provisional pole (at the time of writing) for the Fiorano round! Although his negative balance may damage him when it comes to upgrading parts in the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
The full race summary can be found here
Pro - 16: Ganesh Somasundarum
Only 4 out of the 39 managers who have chosen tyres are on Badyear. So was that a wise choice? It seems so as the leader of Pro-16 has been totally dominating the group, managing 34 points from 4 races. Stats show that 313 managers are on Yokomama and only 106 on Badyear. Stanislav Zhuravushkin has denied all these odds and come up on top. Will race 5 also be productive for him?? Will all the managers be able to keep up with him?? Only time will tell…
Qualifying
Dawid took pole position, only just. He was only 0.206s ahead of Stanislav. Ariel completed the front row. Simone took an astonishing 4th place. Can he have a good race?? Szabolcs qualified 5th with only 0.813s behind pole. Kamil took the 6th place and Ashwin took 7th place for “Forever Rebel International”. Daniel, Laurie and Goran took the last 3 places with a total lap time of 3:23.262s. 2nd placed Sagar started a disappointing 18th place. Trying to get into the top 4, Luis qualified 32nd and Marjo started in a poor 20th place. One contrasting fact was that, managers who were in good positions in the table, started in bad places excepting a few. Will the move up the grid once the race starts???
Race
Dawid started on rain tyres, hoping for the rain to come very soon. So he dropped 24 places to 25th. Zhuravushkin climbed up one spot and took the lead in the first lap. Badea made an astonishing start, advancing 7 positions. Bellocchio held onto his 3rd place and was 2.119s behind Stanislav. Ashwin advanced 3 places and was in 4th place after the first lap. Nowicki gained 1 place thereby pushing Haboczki 3 places down the grid. Wanting his first points of the season, Henttu raced up 4 places to at 10th after the first lap, 4.667s behind the leader. Battling negative money and relegation, Gajary moved up 4 places and was 5.919s behind 1st place. Veteran racer, Beagles who was coming off a stong podium in last race, moved up 2 paces. Lap 7 saw only 13 managers pit for the change of weather tyres. On the contrary, the next lap witnessed 22 managers pit for tyre change!!! This allowed Pole Man, Janczak to move up 26 places in the grid and come up to 9th. Zhuravushkin maintained the lead after the pit. Janczak further advanced 6 places to move upto 3rd place, 5.658s behind 1st place. Lap 15 saw Ashwin in 2nd place and Bellocchio in 3rd place. Meanwhile Sagar had pushed his way through and come up to 4th place but 19.205s behind Zhuravushkin. Brkic was in 38th place with no competition for him. Zhuravushkin’s dominance continued upto lap 30. He had gained a comfortable and safe 14.690s lead. There was heavy traffic in the middle of the track, from 24th to 30th place. Smith was in 21st place and Piskic, Teixeira, Antin, Rautamies followed him. Experienced manager Milivoj was struggling in 28th position. After finishing a disappointing 30th in last race, Kasperavicius was in a good place, 17th. Zhuravushkin eventually completed the formalities. He won the comprehensively, 14.766s ahead of Sagar. Ashwin completed the podium. Nowicki continued his good form by finishing 8th. Ariel finished an impressive 4th place after a string of top 15 finishes.
Simone set the fastest lap of 1:34.607s in lap 6 itself. Sagar set the fastest pit time of 16.426s in lap 36.
Janczak quoted during the race “yesss :D from 36 to 8 now.. :P”
Sagar said "Good times there Kamil..!! You too eyeing promotion this season? better I start pull up my socks against you 4 then..!"
The full race summary can be found here
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