Don't worry, we are not going anywhere, we just came to the conclusion of our second GT3 season of racing on Assetto Corsa Competizione. Our drivers had a challenge of taming one of the most technical circuits on this season's calendar, Watkins Glen International, also known as just The Glen. It is a twisty circuit located just southwest of the village Watkins Glen, New York in the USA naturally. The circuit used to be the home of the US Formula 1 Grand Prix, hosting the races between 1961 and 1980. To this day as well, many different US based racing series are being held at the track, with the likes of IMSA, IndyCar, NASCAR Cup series and many others. It usually brings us great racing action, with lots of close battles on the track!
And same could be said for our race on the virtual version of the circuit! We have seen a shorter entry list for this race compared to many others in the series, but it was not entirely unusual to see that, as some people are still enjoying their holidays, and the drop-off towards the end of the season happens in any racing series anyway. But first things first - let's take a look at what happened in qualifying.
Once again, we have seen the first 15 minutes of the qualifying being reserved for our Silver class drivers, although we haven't had a big number of them attending this last race. But after the conclusion of these first 15 minutes, we have seen Yannis Bouguerra take the pole position in class, with a lap time of 1:43.827, just over a tenth and a half clear of Jeff Buell in second (1:43.985, +0.158). Third place went to Phile Clarke this time around, who managed to put in a 1:44.850 lap time (+1.023). Bouguerra and Buell even qualified right up there among the Gold class drivers as well, ending up in third and fourth place on the overall table!
Over to the Gold class qualifying! Once again we have seen a super close results right at the top of the grid, but the pole position once again went to Abe Santema, who put in a 1:43.480 lap. As mentioned, Hugo Boucher in second was slower by just 0.080s, with 1:43.560, and in third we find Andrey Fedotov, with a lap time of 1:44.072 (+0.592s). This promised us another great and close race, at least before the start of it anyway.
We have seen another great start to the race, with everyone giving each other enough space to get around the first sequence of corners, in this 90 minute season finale. Unfortunately, we have seen an incident in the bus stop, after the long straight, involving a few cars, but the rest of the opening lap went by relatively smoothly, with no major drama. Santema was able to hold off Boucher, who, looked like, got a better run off the start, but couldn't make it stick in the end. Throughout the race, Santema just kept on increasing the lead ahead of everyone behind and finished the race in first place once again, celebrating the series champion title in style! The podium got completed by Xander Huizing finishing in second, and Declan Bowler in third for this final race.
In the Silver class, Bouguerra managed to bring the car home in first place, crowning him the Silver class champion for this season! Fleischman Krisztian was the one to scored another podium, ending the race in second position, while third went to Clarke, finishing the race where he started it as well. The win in class for Bouguerra, and the drive throughout the whole race, even on the overall classification, put him in second place, which is an amazing result!
So, we made it to the end of the season, and with that, we have crowned our champions in both classes! As mentioned before, Abe Santema has taken the top spot in the Gold class, winning the championship quite comfortably, with 82 point advantage. You can hop on our YouTube channel and take a listen to what our champion had to say, in his interview right after the conclusion of the final race. Second place in the championship went to Damien Bosc, who unfortunately had to miss the final race, but still managed to hold on to second place by 5 points, ahead of Hugo Boucher in third. Congratulations to all the podium finishers, as well as all the other drivers that competed in the championship!
As for the Silver class, it ended up being a bit closer, in terms of the point difference, but Yannis Bouguerra still took the class victory by 34 points! In second place we can find Paulo Tempera, also having a great season of racing, and completing the podium, Mike Landreth in third, trailing by just 13 points. Just like with the Gold class champion, our commentator asked Yannis a few questions after the end of the race, so give it a listen here!
We have seen great racing in both classes throughout the whole season, close battles all over the grid, so we can only be happy and excited about it all, and just look into the future for more series and one-off events ahead of our community! Jump on our SimGrid website, and check out the events that we having coming up rather soon again! Lots of track action coming your way, so make sure to give our Twitch channel a follow, and look out for any new streams on there! Of course, as always, we have the stream replay, and a highlight video on our YouTube channel as well, so take a look at that as well and we'll see you on track, and on stream, once again very soon!