The Academy Cup produced yet another week of great racing as we headed to Barcelona for the third round of the season – with Joe McAuley taking his first win after a thrilling forty-five minutes of action. Not only was survival key in the damp conditions, but this race proved crucial for dictating the championship standings.

The factors that made this race so exciting

Heading into Barcelona, Niels van de Koekelt, Amir Hosseini, and Joe McAuley all sat equal on points at the top of the championship standings. This meant that disregarding weather or track characteristics, the battle between these three drivers was underway before a lap had been turned.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Barcelona was set to be a wet race; meaning that the track was damp – but not damp enough for wet tyres. This made overtaking much more difficult when coupled with the fact it’s a spec-series, making areas of the midfield quite the spectacle for action. 

The title fight

Joe McAuley took his first win of the season at Barcelona, making him the third different winner in three races. Despite qualifying fourth in difficult conditions, his pace only improved when we came to the race.

He retained his position despite a chaotic first few laps, but as the fuel loads decreased he would come into his own. After an impressive move around the outside of Jan-Luca Ganz to take third and profiting from the top two’s collision, he found himself in second place, crucially ahead of his two championship rivals (Niels van de Koekelt and Amir Hosseini) and with a better pace than Egor Ogorodnikov ahead of him.

He went on to battle hard with Ogorodnikov but eventually made the move stick. McAuley truly excelled in the treacherous conditions and said in a post-race interview that he ‘wouldn’t mind these conditions again’ as the Academy Cup heads to Spa next week.

Taking second place was Amir Hosseini, who once again had great pace and was in contention for the win throughout the early stages of the race. After showing early promise to take another win, disaster struck for him when he was tapped into the tricky downhill left-hander of turn five by Ogorodnikov, sending him back to third. This, crucially, allowed McAuley and Ogorodnikov the opportunity to get away and steer clear of the pack.

Despite this blow to his winning hopes, not all was lost. With around fifteen minutes to go, Hosseini passed Ogorodnikov, giving him the opportunity to catch McAuley and whilst this didn’t come to fruition, he secured the second position on track. This puts him just five points behind McAuley in the drivers’ championship standings.

Rounding out the podium was the pacey Egor Ogorodnikov. Just like McAuley, he too found incredible pace in the damp conditions, showing us his skills at keeping them under control. On the higher fuel level, he certainly had the pace to challenge for the win, but his collision with Hosseini hampered his chances. 

Hosseini and himself had a buffer to McAuley before the contact, but that was quickly erased. To add to his woes, he was handed a five-second time penalty by the live FIA, taking him out of contention for first or second position. He did fight valiantly, however, putting on a good show as he tried to keep his competitors at bay.

The big winners 

The damp conditions at Barcelona heavily mixed up the grid, as drivers desperately looked for grip and experimented with different tyres. This meant that some drivers were much higher than expected whilst there were some that were on the receiving end of the misfortune.

One of the stand out drivers this week was most certainly Jan-Luca Ganz. Up until now, he has hovered on the outskirts of the top ten in the standings, finishing tenth at Silverstone and fifteenth at Zandvoort. When we got to Barcelona, however, this was to be a different story. He qualified in third, making it by far his best qualifying session of the season, which was coupled with a solid drive through the race. Making a name for himself in the wet conditions, he took the flag fourth after a well-rounded drive.

Another newcomer to the top positions was Killian Ryan-Meenan. He qualified much better than he had done in previous races and kept that going into the race. He did unbelievably well to keep out of trouble since he was constantly involved in battles and came home to take his best finish of the season by a whopping fifteen positions.

Biggest losers

With every winner, there has to be a loser, and this was certainly true once again. With new drivers showing themselves to be up there as among the best, there was always going to be some who weren’t so fortunate.

One of the shock results this time out was for Niels van de Koekelt, our maiden winner from Zandvoort. Not only was he coming off of such a great result, but he is also one of our main championship contenders, meaning that one poor race can take him far from the top of the order. 

As his championship rivals excelled at the front of the field, Niels struggled. He qualified relatively well and was only just behind McAuley early in the race but as the tyres degraded, he fell into the clutches of the cut-throat midfield battle. Not only that, but he was handed a fifteen-second penalty for a collision on lap one.  

Another driver who had a disappointing race was Alexander Karsten. He was, arguably, our stand out driver from last week, but after taking the gamble to start on wet tyres, he burnt them up in no time, spinning on astroturf and getting collected by oncoming traffic. Despite the tyre deficit, he was able to move up to sixth place before the incident, showing us that his pace at Zandvoort wasn’t a one-off.

The Spa Forecast

The fourth round of the Academy Cup in association with Trackwerks will be held at the infamous Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, which always produces great racing, in a week’s time on The Sim Grid YouTube channel. Spa is already a challenge in GT3 cars, so expect the drivers to be pushed to their limits. 

Coach Dave Academy is still offering a 20% discount on the Porsche Cup car’s setups, meaning the drivers should have all the equipment they need for a competitive race. With lots of drivers picking them up, it means the drivers’ wheel to wheel skill will be even more important. The drivers’ championship is also still so close, meaning every position will still be worth the fight.

The Academy Cup’s title sponsor, Trackwerks, is currently holding a discount on their brake mod for Thrustmaster T-LCM and T3PA pedals with the coupon code “AcademyCup” which will only be on for a limited time, so make sure you check them out for the best brake mods available.