After a thrilling 12 hours of racing at Mount Panorama, Revolution Sim Racing Blue brought home their battle stricken Mercedes to take the overall victory in the Sim Grid World Cup by Thrustmaster. Despite not leading until the last half of the race, the team showed great pace and skill to bring a damaged car home in the final hour of what proved to be a race that captivated the Assetto Corsa Competizione community.
How it happened
Up until the six-hour mark, the #56 Mercedes from the “Like And Subscribe” Team had been leading for the majority of the race, pulling out a forty-second gap at one point, but disaster struck when it crashed at the top of the mountain, forcing the team to pit just ten laps after its previous scheduled stop. From then onwards, the #44 Mercedes pulled out a massive lead until the last hour when it was hit by a lapped car, damaging its rear end.
This would be the catalyst for a dramatic final hour, whereby the #56 Mercedes would put in a valiant effort to try and take victory in the dying minutes from the damaged leader – but the #44 car hung on with just a 3-second gap to its opponent. Going into the twenty-four hours of Spa by Thrustmaster next month, the “Revolution Sim Racing Blue” team will be looking to further close the gap to the championship-leading “Like And Subscribe” Team and the other top three teams after a poor finish at Suzuka.
However, these two teams weren’t always in contention for the victory. During the first hour, the previously championship-leading “GTWR Racing” Team Audi was leading from pole position and had already built up a very solid gap to the next closest car, but just after the first set of pit-stops, they hit a stationary car, thus, destroying their near-perfect start. Despite strong pace allowing them to come back through the pack, they later disconnected, which dropped the team to outside the top twenty. However, they did end up in eleventh whilst demonstrating their true endurance racing attitude.
Not far behind the top two Mercedes’ on the road, was the #37 Honda from the “Rookie Monsters” team, which crossed the line in third position. They had a very strong showing throughout the race, despite the Honda often being looked down upon throughout the community. At one point, they briefly led, but due to some mistakes in the middle and later sections of the race, they were forced to make their way back through the field of immensely skilled teams.
During this period, they showed some brilliant pace and outstanding racecraft to bring the car back up to where it was in the early part of the race. With the latest pack of setups from the Coach Dave Academy being with the Honda, the car is going from strength to strength.
The stand out performances throughout the pack
Despite these great drives, one of the stand out performances across the entire twelve-hour race was from the #995 “KEK Sim Racing” Aston Martin, who took home not only first in the silver class but sixth overall. They drove a commanding race in their class, finishing a whopping nine positions ahead of the second-place silver “Revolution Sim Racing Red” Audi who also drove a more than respectable race. However, in their class, the #995 Aston Martin started third and the Audi outside of the top nine, making both drives ever more impressive. This result meant that the “KEK Sim Racing” #2 team moved up to first position in the class standings.
Another stand out performance was from the #888 Coach Dave Academy Ferrari, who took fourth overall. They didn’t have the cleanest of races, getting caught up in a few incidents out of their control, but when they didn’t have incidents holding them back, their consistency and overtaking were stellar, gaining fourteen positions after the twelve hours. Just like its fellow Ferraris of the “MSR Liga Endurance” Team and “YAS HEAT” cars, as the temperatures rose the cars truly came alive, boosting them up the order as the race went on.
As the sun rose over the mountain, the increase in temperatures played into the hands of the “YAS HEAT” Ferrari, which, combined with amazing pure pace allowed the team to rise to second overall for a large chunk of time. This was to be undone after a crash at the Forest Elbow, dropping them to fifth. They would undoubtedly be disappointed with their finishing position compared to where they could have been but they drove extremely well to finish fifth and showed themselves to be a team to keep your eye on as the series develops.
However, one of the most exciting battles came within the last fifteen minutes, as two of the very few Porsches on the forty car grid from “Carbon.eSports” and “SideMax Motorworks” #97, fought tooth and nail for ninth place, with the “SideMax Motorworks” Porsche coming out on top.
Two very honourable teams also to mention are the #123 “FFS racing” Nissan and #12 “Scuderia WeBinNow” Ferrari. The latter entered the race as a guest car but finished in twelfth after running inside the top ten for some time – proving themselves as a pro class worthy team. The #123 Nissan finished not too far behind the lone guest car in fifteenth, but ran inside the top eight for almost the entirety of the race, showing that their fifth place finish in Suzuka last month was not a one-off.
The importance of strategy in endurance racing
This race was once again a testament as to how much less important qualifying is in endurance racing. Multiple cars drove through the pack from a worse qualifying session to finish much better than they started – whilst some teams did the complete opposite. Most notably were: The race-winning Mercedes who came from ninth on the grid, the Coach Dave Academy #888 Ferrari rose to fourth from eighteenth, the #225 and #97 Porsches finished inside the top ten from starting outside the top twenty in qualifying.
After two thrilling rounds of The Sim Grid World Cup by Thrustmaster at Suzuka and Bathurst, expect more of the same from the 24 Hours of Spa on the 31st of October, which will be streamed live officially on The Sim Grid YouTube channel. Make sure to join us there!
