|
The seventh and last round of Apex Cup season 2 was held on Friday the 20th on the highspeed circuit Kyoto Ring GP Long with the GTR class.
In qualifying it was J.Basford from My3id Gaming in the FZR that set a fast time on his first attempt with a 2:09.97. J.Lehikoinen from My3id Gaming 2 came in 2nd with the XRR. Later in the session it was C.Mitchel that put in a 2:09.88, which was good for a second place in the end. J.Basford managed to improve his time on his last possible lap, setting a great lap of 2:09.43 which was enough for pole-position. T.Iivonen from ineX Racing 2 was the last driver that managed a time within the '09, taking 3rd on the grid. J.Lehikoinen, S.Cattell from ineX Racing and N.Dakovic from My3id Gaming took respectively 4th, 5th and 6th while the championship contender J.Holmes from ineX Racing struggled with a 2:10.61, taking 9th on the grid.
The sprint race of 7 laps started without any problems for J.Basford and he was able to maintain his position into the first corner. C.Mitchel on the other hand had less luck, after some contact with N.Dakovic he lost several positions falling back to the 8th position. J.Lehikoinen had a good start with his XRR and managed to pass S.Cattell in turn 3, taking the second position. T.Iivonen passed his teammate S.Cattell in lap 2 and was catching J.Lehikoinen quickly. In the fourth lap of the race he got into his sliptstream and made the pass in the first turn, taking over the second place. One of the biggest winners in the opening lap was K.Leu from Concept Racing, he won 3 positions and finished in 5th position. J.Basford won the race with a 2,5 second gap to T.Iivonen. J.Lehikoinen finished in third as the best XRR driver, while S.Cattell took fourth. M.Daszkiewicz from Conquest Racing finished in 6th, with J.Holmes just behind him. Y.Laprevotte from Tiger Express Motorsports crossed the line in 10th which gave him the pole position for the main race.
The main race of 21 laps started with a collision in turn one, involving C.Mitchel, K.Leu and J.Lehikoinen. Unfortunately for Y.Laprevotte he wasn't able to maintain his first position after losing 4 spots on the start of the race. S.Cattell was one of the biggest winners after the opening lap, taking the first position already after starting from 7th. J.Holmes decided to pit early for his mandatory pit-stop in lap 4, coming back in 14th on the track. In the meantime it was J.Basford that was winning multiple positions in the first few laps, taking 2nd after overtaking M.Daszkiewicz in the 8th lap of the race. J.Basford started to close a 5 second gap to S.Cattell and in lap 18 he was close enough to take advantage of the slipstream and pass him into turn one. Both drivers decided to make their pit-stop in lap 19 of the race, when S.Cattell lost his chances for the win after making contact with the barrier when he came into the pits. J.Basford didn't take any risk in the last two laps of the race and took the triple and the driver championship win! S.Cattell finished in 2nd, 6 seconds behind the winner. K.Leu took a quite surprising but deserved 3rd position in the end when the others made their mandatory pit-stop in the last laps. M.Daszkiewicz took 4th, closely followed by N.Dakovic and J.Holmes. Y.Laprevotte, M.Kapal and Y.Cai were the last three drivers that finished in the points.
J.Basford wins the driver championship of Apex Cup season 2, with a 55 points lead over J.Holmes. K.Leu finishes in 3rd, 13 points behind J.Holmes. In the team championship it's My3id Gaming who takes the win with a quite big margin over ineX Racing and ineX Racing 2.
We want to thank all of the drivers for taking part in Apex Cup Season 2. With 68 different drivers, 40 teams and an extremely competetive field we think it was yet again a very good season which we can be proud of.
Finally we want to thank the commentators (Tommy Østgaard in particular), the admins, Flexwebhosting.nl, UKDedigamers, MultiBC and all the other people that supported us during the season. Did you enjoy it as much as we did? Please consider a donation so we may be back later this or next year with plenty of more action.
Driver Quotes:
Jack Basford
"It's a very nice feeling to win the driver and team championships this season. It was quite a hill to climb at times but maximizing our strong points and relying on consistency elsewhere was key.
In my case I have basically always raced cars with slicks or downforce in LFS and never liked the road cars. Apex Cup was a chance to challenge myself and develop in that area. From the outset the level of competition at the front was awesome. Every round, a specialist in each car would raise the bar, which set a solid benchmark to learn from. My specialist rounds (single seaters and GTRs) were clearly stronger for me, since I either won or fought to win all of those rounds. The road cars were a much bigger challenge but I grew in confidence with them by doing this season.
Round 1 was a big shift to a heavy FWD road car. Learning to use the handbrake there helped and I was able to run at the sharp end. For Round 2 the FOX was familiar ground which translated to a victory. For the mid-season I was quite busy and ended up building setups through quali/sprint for Rounds 3&5. That limited any progress in the LX4 and FZ5 but taught me to compress my preparation in to a narrower window. Round 4 with the FO8 was less of an issue as I know it like the back of my hand, so was able to fight for the win.
Approaching the end of the season the championship was still open. The MRT and FZR are cars that I am confident in so I was only going be happy with wins, which I achieved and settled the championship in the style I would have liked. The performance deficit in the road cars should be substantially less in future, and I feel a more complete driver for doing Apex Cup.
Thanks to the organizers, admins and commentary team for putting these events on."
Joe Holmes
"Was a tough round for me, had minimal testing due to exams, and this was a round that i needed alot of testing on.
In qualy i failed to get a decent lap, which cost me a good starting position. Race 1 was okay, but a last lap fail set me back and cost me a position. Feature race was better, hit a buggy curb in the chicane which cost me a good 6 seconds, and this perhaps cost me 4th place, maybe even 3rd.
Really happy to finish 2nd in the championship, i came into the championship as just another driver, so to be at the top challenging for the championship win was great. Jack did a great job so well done to him, and also Kevin!"
Simon Cattell
"I came into the race a little unprepared but I've raced this combo a lot so was moderately confident, despite a poor qualifying performance. Had a great battle with Jarno for 3rd in the sprint though couldn't quite get past.
I got a great start in the feature however, resulting in the race lead by the end of lap 3. As the race wore on, Jack was flying though and although my dampers were shot, I had to push like crazy to keep the gap to him behind. Eventually his raw pace caught me up and I had to take unjustifiable risks in the "boothy" chicane corner to prevent him overtaking. Luckily made no mistakes, but his speed was just too much and hats off to him for a great race, I felt like I was on my limits and changing my arbs for every individual corner to give myself the best opportunity for quick laptimes and minimising tyre wear due to damage, but he eclipsed my efforts and deservedly won, great way to end this fun season."
Nikifor Dakovic
"Extremely competitive field through the whole season and so it was in the ultimate round. I was quite unlucky with sprint race start, but worked my way up to get myself a nice grid position for featuring race. I even got into the lead early on, but unfortunately I made an error which dropped me a bit back. Had some nice racing there and well can't say it couldn't have been better, but I'm quite satisfied to find myself 5th overall in points standings with this grid profile."
Yann Laprevotte
"I came to this round with no more than a few laps of practice again. I only had one lap in quali, which explains my poor 17th place. In race 1 I climbed a bit and gained positions thanks to incidents, to get 10th and pole in reversed grid race 2. I took a conservative start in race 2 since I knew I was much slower than the top guys, but I managed to stabilise my position once I got around 7th-8th. I got 7th and 4 points in the end, and also first non-FZR guy for the record. Not a bad season ending.
In the end I had quite a nice season. I had some very nice clean races all the way. I managed to get regular point scoring, and even a podium at round 6, which I really didn't expect(especially not with the MRT). Overall top 10 is a nice result in the end, I'm very happy of it. Congrats to Jack and My3id for being constantly on top and getting well deserved titles. Thanks to the admins for the top-notch organisation from the first to the final round, and thanks to the streaming team aswell. If there is any season 3 I'd be really happy to join it and I hope to see many of this season's competitors back."
Downloads
Standings
Statistics
Race Images
|
