until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Formula SimRacing World Championship leader and The Race All-Star Series event winner Jernej Simoncic claimed his first GPVWC Superleague win of 2020 in the series’ German Grand Prix.
The result was also the first Superleague race win ever for his team, Burst Esport Basilea.
Simoncic started the German GP at Hockenheim from pole position with championship leader Jannick Bock’s fastest lap time, which had been good enough for first, deleted due to gaining time by going off track.
Slovenian driver Simoncic kept his spot at the head of the pack and he fended off attacks from both Bock and Adam Maguire.
With overtaking moves proving hard to pull off, Maguire tried to undercut his rivals as he pitted for the one and only time four laps before Bock and five laps before Simoncic.
Unfortunately for the Irishman once he stopped for new tyres both Bock and Simoncic upped their pace and set personal best lap times.
There was no change at the front after the pitstops as Simoncic established a two second lead over Bock by pitting later and having less traffic to clear.
With Simoncic, Bock and Maguire outside of DRS range of one another, Simoncic was unchallenged for the remainder of the race and won it by five seconds.
Maguire kept third place, although in the final two laps Rait Kilk got within a second of him and was able to challenge for the final podium place with the aid of DRS.
On the final lap Maguire went defensive into the hairpin and Turn 8, the two main overtaking spots on track, and managed to finish in third with Kilk closely trailing him.
Maciej Mlynek was able to leap up the order by undercutting his rivals, jumping from ninth to his eventual finishing position of fifth by being the first driver to pit.
Conversely Dennis Jordan was one of the last of the top 10 starters to pit and subsequently he dropped down the order having qualified in fourth on the grid.
Daniel Brewer benefited from Jordan’s strategy error as he crossed the line in sixth having passed Liam de Waal on the final lap.
De Waal has now permanently stepped up to the second race seat at Edonis Engineering having dominated the Superleague Lights championship, replacing Eros Masciulli.
The Hockenheim result means Bock has extended his championship lead by four points over Maguire.
Simoncic is still third in the standings, but is 65 points behind Bock and 51 behind Maguire.
“I’ve been quite unlucky in some previous races with various random glitches and mistakes that should not happen ever. In this race finally nothing went wrong for us so it’s nice to win,” Simoncic said.
“I know that due to unlucky races it’s basically impossible for me to win the championship.
“If I win all the rest of the races and Jannick has bad luck at them, I guess I would have a chance but I’m not really thinking of that.”
