IVRA Endurance at Mid-Ohio
Another short and narrow track in the IVRA Endurance series! 4 hours on the twisty Mid-Ohio track was seen before-hand as a daunting task, but in general, the race turned out to bring some great racing. As always in the Endurance league, we put one BMW GTE and two LMP2s on the starting line.
The first half of the race went mostly in our favor, with our GTE and one of the LMP2s running in the top three and the fuel tactics going according to plan. Few safety cars in the first half meant that the cars could battle it out among themselves without too much disturbance. In general, this leads to better racing since the field is more split up and what settles the order of cars is pace and overtaking, and lack of mistakes, rather than unfortunate safety cars packing the field together.
During the second half, things changed a bit for the worse. Our GTE car got hit a couple of times and fell back in the field, more safety cars came out gathering the field and leading to some chaotic restarts, and with just minutes to go, our LMP2 car in the top three got hit from behind and fell through the field.
In the end, our LMP2 cars ended up in place 7 and 13 which is a bit of a disappointment based on how the race looked up until the end. The GTE car finished in 5th place which is also somewhat of a disappointment since there was a chance of a better result.
Now, we will take a break from the leagues for a while, but the endurance racing continues with Daytona 24 hours already this weekend!