The third season of The Sim Grid Sprint Cup has come to its thrilling conclusion and a new champion has been crowned. The final race of the season at Suzuka saw some thrilling door to door action, with drivers leaving absolutely nothing out on track. In this article, we go behind the scenes at Suzuka, seeing what teams and drivers have to say about their race and their season.
Nils Naujouks – #62 BMW Team G2 Esports
G2 Esports had a brilliant season, winning two out of the six races as well as taking two-second places in the final two rounds, allowing them to take the championship comfortably. However, Nils Naujoks’ busy schedule has prevented him from relishing this success until now.
“We didn’t really have time to acknowledge it yet, because just a day after SRO Esports started with both the Sprint and Endurance series and these results have occupied our head so far. However, giving it a moment, I think we did really great winning in the BMW. There were a lot of strong packages on the grid but we prevailed.”
Naujoks credits taking advantage of BoP, the team’s speed in qualifying, and being cautious when needed for G2’s outstanding success this season.
“I’m sure it’s that we scored the maximum every time the BoP allowed us a chance. We can’t underestimate the importance of qualifying far upfront to stay away from issues with too aggressive drivers in the pack.”
G2 Esports had a comfortable lead in the standings going into the final round. While they were quietly confident, they still had a clear plan for themselves going into the race.
“We had live points prepared so that we’d always know what we need to achieve during the race. After qualifying we already knew that most of the teams still having a shot in the championship were a fair bit behind us and it was always very unlikely for them to suddenly win the race from there. So the plan was really to stay out of trouble at all costs and just collect the necessary points.” Noujouks told The Sim Grid. “There’s always a grain of doubt – just a week earlier my brake broke during the 24h race, so until you cross the line you never know. But all threats we could control I think we had under control so once Arthur [Kammerer] was in the car and the field was spread out a bit, we were quite confident.”
Joonas Savolainen – Griphax Engineering #77
Griphax Engineering ended their debut season in the Sprint Cup with a spectacular performance, taking their Mercedes to a dominant victory at Suzuka.
Joonas Savolainen was able to take an early lead, escaping wheel-to-wheel battles ensuing behind him.
“Well, [Michal] Nowakowski played a big role in that by getting in front of [Nils] Naujoks in the start. Nowakowski didn’t have the pace to keep up with me and I think Naujoks would have done better. Overall we felt really confident in our car at Suzuka and we had the single lap and race pace this time!”
The blistering pace shown at Suzuka has unfortunately failed to be translated into results more consistently throughout the season. Savolainen attributes this to inexperience but is ultimately happy with the team’s performance throughout the season.
“Definitely we could’ve done better, but we had so much to learn. I haven’t driven more than maybe 30 league race starts ever in ACC and inexperience still shows its ugly head at times. Mostly not getting the balance right when to drive aggressive and when to just passively observe and that gets me into trouble. Also setting up the car takes a lot of time and practice, but I think we are getting there!” He told The Sim Grid. “This was our first international championship together so I am happy how we ended up 2nd overall.”
These strong performances have left Salvolainen very hopeful for future title contention for the team.
“When everything goes how it’s planned I think we have a good chance! It’s just how consistently we can predict what is going to happen during the races since we lack the experience. I still think we are learning fast and if we are not the contenders for S4, I promise we will be on S5!”
Luke Whitehead – H3 Racing #404
Luke Whitehead from H3 Racing certainly put on a show in the final race of the season, driving his Ferrari solo from 17th on the grid to a final finish of 8th place.
“To be honest, I was quite shocked at the progress I made! Of course, I was helped by others crashing into each other, but I took all the opportunities I was given, forced a few errors, and made some very decisive and risky moves, which all luckily paid off perfectly!” Said Whitehead.
This incredible drive was not without its challenges, however. Whitehead was driving without a teammate, picking up a 10-second penalty as a result, though he is unsure if this made any significant difference.
“I think it’s always difficult to say in the end, because on face value, I was 15 or so seconds behind the car ahead, and so 10 seconds doesn’t seem to have made a huge difference. But coming into the pits, I was ahead of the car that finished in p5 at the end of the race, so it definitely didn’t help, but I think my bad luck in quali massively detrimented the maximum result anyways.”
One of the major talking points in the latter stages of the race was Whitehead’s on-track battle with Black Hawk Racing’s Chris Severt, which he admits while frustrating at times, was very respectful.
“It was definitely a mix… I was a little bit frustrated, but I knew that patience is of paramount importance when racing against drivers of his calibre, especially at Suzuka, and if anything, staying behind for a few laps helped me find the GTR’s weaknesses, and that’s where I eventually capitalised… It was an awesome battle though, and massive respect to Chris Severt; Others would have driven me off the track in that situation, so it was nice to have a tough but clean fight so late into the race.”
Chris Severt – Black Hawk Racing #81
Season 3 of the Sprint Cup has seen Black Hawk Racing run the only Nissan GTR in the field. While it is not a common car choice, driver Chris Severt was surprised with the car’s performance.
“Going into the start of the season I wasn’t thinking about picking the fastest car. The last 2 sprint cups I didn’t really have very much luck so I just wanted to have fun and pick a car I haven’t driven before. I didn’t think the Nissan would be a very strong choice for any race, so I would have just been happy with mid-field fighting the whole season. In the end, I found that the Nissan was actually incredibly fast at Imola and so long as you get a good wet setup we could have been looking at podiums during the rain as well. I just wish it was wet during Imola’s race. If my practice sessions were anything to go by, that would have been a very secure win.”
Despite the team’s decent results with the car this season, it seems likely that Black Hawk Racing will be changing cars for Season 4, according to Severt.
“I don’t think I will stick with the Nissan. There are some characteristics of the car in medium and high-speed corners that I just can’t get my head around to be especially competitive. I think I would rather stick with an Aston or Audi (so long as Monza isn’t on the calendar!) I might also dabble in the world of Ferrari since that’s also a car I’ve managed to avoid so far.”
One of the major talking points from the final round at Suzuka was Severt’s incredibly exciting battle with Luke Whitehead. Severt seems happy with his efforts in defending against Whitehead, despite the odds being stacked against him.
“There were a lot of things going against me during that fight. First off I was just missing pace at Suzuka. It’s not my strongest track and I was missing almost a quarter second from my teammate Sascha [Glatter]. I had also damaged my right rear tyre from too many off-tracks. So I was at a significant pace disadvantage.
“At that point in the race, the only way we could hold 3rd in the championship was to finish 7th, but they were long down the road. The only hope was to fight hard for 8th and gamble on a penalty further up. I was happy to have some good defending action though. I don’t get into that situation too often and you never know when you’ll have to fight like that in the future. I was surprised to hold him off as long as I did and learned a bit more about how to extend the width of the car at the entrance to Casio Triangle, though failed to repeat it just one more time and Luke took full advantage of it.”
And so concludes Season 3. As one chapter comes to a close, these incredible teams and drivers will be gearing up once more for some other incredible races here at The Sim Grid.
