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The final round of the Apex Cup was held Friday the 23th on the highspeed circuit Kyoto Ring GP Long with the GTR class.
Qualifying was extremely close and with only 10 minutes to go in the session the top 4 was only seperated by a tenth of a second. For a long time it looked that Adam Wisniewski from spdoRacing would take the pole position with a time of 2:09.99, but Nolan Scott from ineX Racing managed to beat his time by 0,03 on his last possible lap. A.Dukulis took the 3rd position with M.Runas and J.Wiechowski behind him in 4th and 5th place.
The sprint race showed very close and clean racing all throughout the pack. N.Scott who started from pole position drove a very good and consistent pace and was so able to take a relatively easy win and take important points for the champhionship. J.Wiechowski from Conquest Racing, who started from 5th, fought his way up into the field and passed several drivers. In lap 5 he managed to overtake A.Dukulis in the fast chicane after getting into his slipstream and took the 2nd place. Unfortunately for A.Dukulis he timed-out in lap 6 which brought A.Wisniewski into 3rd place and Kevin Leu from Concept Racing in 4th. This meant that K.Leu was still able to win the championship with only one race to go.
The main race started as usual with the top 10 reversed. This meant that M.Runas was starting from pole position. He lead the race for a long time until he had to make his mandatory pit-stop in lap 15 which put him back into 8th. In the end he was able to take one more position and finished in 7th. In the meantime N.Scott and K.Leu fought for every position to take as many points for the championship as they could. In the second corner of the race it was almost over for N.Scott and K.leu when A.Wiesniewski outbraked himself and hit both drivers which made them spin. Fortunately both drivers could continue their race with only some minor damage while C.Elton had to spectate when he got stuck in the gravel. N.Scott and K.Leu decided to make their mandatory pit-stop in lap 2, so they had a clear track without too much traffic. Both drivers worked theirself up through the field while others had to make their mandatory pit-stops. With 5 laps K.Leu took the lead with N.Scott closely behind him, this meant that N.Scott would take the championship win because he was several points in front of K.Leu. K.Leu did whatever he could, and won the main race just in front of N.Scott. This meant that N.Scott took enough points to win the championship of Apex Cup Season 1! The 3rd place in the race was taken by J.Wiechowski followed by O.Rinne and J.Peace.
In the end it was N.Scott who did the best job with winning the championship. K.Leu takes the second place in the overall standings, while L.Barbosa gets 3rd with J.Wiechowski just behind him with only a 1 point difference. In the team championship it's ineX Racing who takes the win followed by Conquest Racing and Concept Racing.
We want to thank all of the drivers for taking part in Apex Cup Season 1. With 50 different drivers taking part in the first season and a strong field we think it was a very good first season which we can be proud of. We hope to see you all in Apex Cup Season 2, which will be announced later this year.
Driver Quotes:
Kevin Leu
"Thanks for a great season to the organizers, it's a shame the racers didn't pay it back with a big field of drivers. Was a really nice ending with that very last main race, pushed a lot to make nolan sweat for his overall win, congratulations to him he certainly was the most consistent driver and fully deserved to end up on top. See you for the next edition of the apex cup."
Nolan Scott
"This was all for ineX Racing and the guys that gave me the motivation to come back and run Live for Speed again. I wasn't quite as strong as I've been in the past, but I've regained my confidence and I am overwhelmingly happy about bringing home the individual and team championships for my team! Thanks to all the admins and racers for this hard fought, high skilled championship."
Andris Pavars
"The race wasn't what I expected it to be after practicing earlier that day. Many things went wrong, lost my concentration and even managed to go off the road few times and loose quite a lot of time. Lap times were much slower than I had been doing during the practice, but I managed to finish. Didn't get to fight with anyone too much so it was a bit of boring race for me."
James Peace
"Due to inactivity I wasn't able to race in the earlier races but from watching the streams it looked great fun! I was then drawn to the KY3 GTR round at the finale but unfortunatly missed qualification. I found the racing hard and fair, and the admin team did a brilliant job as usual. Overall the whole season looked professional, close, and fair with WR's being broken in qualifying, and the best drivers on LFS racing in each race with a range of combinations suiting different drivers."
Oskari Rinne
"My qualiflying was the best I was managed to do. 8th didint look so bad for me, looking the fact that I would have good starting position to main race, if I would just make stable sprint race. Well, I got little bit hit on the T1, losed couple places there. I took couple places up, then I had little touch whit my teammate, Niko Puntola, result of that I had little bit Right Front suspensinon damage. Finished the race on 8th place, just where I started. Didint have high expetations to main race. When I saw, that Nolan and Kevin got wide in T2, I desided to start push. I was driving same pace whit Runas, couldent catch him, but he wasnt pulling away. When he spinned on the shicane, I drived couple laps after that and pitted. I was hoping that I would get back on track before Nolan and Kevin, but they had such a high pace, I didint stand a chance and they passed me while I was in the pits. I got back to track three seconds ahead of Wiscowski, but he had much better tyres. Desided to let him go whitout much a fight. At the end im happy about 4th place. When you look on my best times, im allmost second away from leaders. If my pace would just be better..."
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