Heikki Jaakkola scored valuable points in the LFS Pro Series this evening to take the spdo team to second in the championship, while Justin Trickle made an extremely promising debut for the team in Marc Gassner’s absence.
Round four was the second of two GTR rounds appearing in the inaugural season of the LFS Pro Series and was staged at the Westhill International circuit. Championship leader Johannes Scheuerle was unavailable for the Westhill event, so compatriot Phil Rose filled in for #low-racing. There were other notable absentees as none of the SK team was present, while the unavailable Marc Gassner was replaced by spdoRacing team mate Justin Trickle.
With this event being a prelude to November's Masters of Endurance six hours of Westhill race, competition was expected to be fierce and this was demonstrated in qualifying as My3id driver David Williams took pole position with an impressive time of 1 minute 29.12 seconds. F1RST Racing occupied positions two through to six on the grid, with Andre Roque alongside Williams on the front row. Trickle was seventh for spdo with team mate Heikki Jaakkola beside him on the fourth row having posted an identical time in qualifying.
The start of the 15 lap opening race was marred by a crash in turn three involving Vincent Staal, Williams, Roque and Jesse Nieminen, effectively ending the race for the three F1RST Racing drivers. With the field already relatively depleted it was decided to allow a vote from the drivers on whether or not to restart the race.
The vote did eventually result in a restart, the outcome of which was a slightly revised starting grid. Due to the initial retirements of Roque and Nieminen, the two F1RST drivers now sat ninth and tenth on the grid respectively, having initially qualified second and third.
There wasn’t to be a repeat of the first start as second time around the grid managed to get through the first lap largely unscathed. Gunzelmann passed Finn Jaakkola for fifth place, with the only other noteworthy action involving Trickle. The 17 year-old was compromised by an out-of-shape Christian Krognes in turn two and struggled to recover as Gunzelmann, Jaakkola and Rose passed the German in turn three. It was a real baptism of fire for the rookie, as Nieminen and Roque passed the spdo driver later in the lap to relegate him to last position.
With most of the field already spreading out, an untidy final sector on lap two from Rose saw the German drop down to ninth, behind Roque and Nieminen.
Roque's race ended prematurely as a mistake from the Portuguese on lap four left him in the wall in turn three.
Not long after losing out to the German, Jaakkola was able to re-pass Markus Gunzelmann for fifth place, but with the gap ahead to Krognes at over five seconds the Finn's position appeared unlikely to improve further. One lap later Nieminen executed an identical pass on the #low-racing driver to claim sixth position.
Half way through the race, Rudy van Buren's race and event ended, following a spin for the Dutchman in the sector two chicane. This left just eight cars on track and promoted Christian Krognes into second position.
And after Trickle retired from the race following an incident similar to that of van Buren’s two laps earlier, only seven cars were left racing, with scenes similar to those seen at Kyoto a week earlier.
Meanwhile, Williams was extremely comfortable at the front of the field, with Krognes seemingly unable to impose himself on the Brit. The only battle in the second half of the race came between #low-racing team mates Gunzelmann and Rose, with Rose passing Gunzelmann on the 12th lap of the race.
However, the points were not yet decided as with Williams seemingly coasting to victory, the Brit lost connection to the server with just 5 minutes of the race remaining, handing Krognes and Staal a F1RST Racing one-two, with Jaakkola inheriting third position for spdo.
The result of race one was reversed to determine the starting order for the 25 lap second race, which saw Williams again starting on pole, with Trickle alongside him on the front row and Roque in third.
The second race started without incident, with the only action in the first half of lap one coming when a block by Jaakkola on Krognes allowed Staal to move past the Norwegian into seventh place.
At the end of lap one, a slide exiting the final corner for Williams coupled with a good final sector from Trickle allowed the young German to pass the Brit over the start line. Trickle's lead was short-lived however, as Williams successfully executed a daring pass into turn two. This allowed third-placed Roque to pull alongside the German into the long turn three, but following contact between the two drivers Roque was sent into the wall where his race ended. Behind the German, Rose took advantage of the situation to take second position from Trickle.
A good second lap saw Jaakkola gain two positions as Nieminen and Gunzelmann were battling with one another for fourth position. Three laps later, Jaakkola was back down to sixth as Nieminen and Staal both made it past him into fourth and fifth respectively.
A spin in the chicane for second-placed Rose on lap six dropped the German to the back of the field, leaving Trickle second behind the now dominant Williams. And the second sector chicane claimed yet another victim a lap later, as a small mistake from Staal cost the Dutch driver momentum and allowed Jaakkola to move up to fourth position.
At the front of the field, Williams’ lead again failed to last, as an error on lap eight relegated the Brit to eighth position, immediately behind the recovering Krognes. This meant that Trickle inherited the lead, though Nieminen was threatening to pass the German.
As Trickle appeared comfortable in first position, there was also little of interest going on behind the German, until the fifth-placed Krognes unfortunately lost connection to the server with little under half the race remaining.
Trickle’s comfort at the front of the field belied his inexperience, and it wasn’t until the German had been leading for six laps that a slight mistake allowed Nieminen to move into first position.
With Nieminen pulling away at the front of the field spdo team mates Trickle and Jaakkola would have hoped to maintain their podium positions until the end of the race. But with nine laps to go, Staal was able to pass Jaakkola following a poor exit from the final corner from the Finn, leaving the Dutchman less than a second away from second-placed Trickle and another F1RST Racing one-two.
Just two laps from the end of the race, Staal was able to get alongside Trickle into the final corner, and when the German ran onto the grass in turn one Staal and Jaakkola were both able to move past Trickle into second and third positions respectively. This left Trickle firmly on the back foot and when the inexperienced German came under pressure from Williams later in the lap he inevitably found the Brit impossible to resist.
With Krognes taking the victory in race one, ahead of Staal and Jaakkola and Nieminen winning race two with Staal and Jaakkola again rounding out the podium, the driver standings have evolved dramatically in the absence of Scheuerle and Gassner. Staal now leads the way with 144 points, three points ahead of Scheuerle, with Nieminen third and Gassner down to sixth.
The team standings make more familiar reading, with the only significant change being the drop of Pro Series Racing from second to fourth position. #low-racing still hold a comfortable lead, with spdoRacing 90 points behind in second. F1RST Racing Red rounds out the top three.
The LFS Pro Series will visit the South City Chicane Reversed track on the 26th of November, with the UFR and XFR cars making their final appearance of the season.