until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
After a 10 week break, the BMW SIM M2 CS Racing Cup returned and R8G Esports driver Risto Kappet won his second race of the series.
Having won a previous round in the championship the ticket to the BMW SIM Live event – to be held in Munich at the end of the year – was given to third placed Zbigniew Siara.
He started from pole position, but it was far from a straightforward victory.
Peyo Peev also started on the front row of the grid but had a better start than Kappet, broke late for the first corner of the Nurburgring 24 hour layout circuit and ran deep into it, but Peev had the inside line for the second corner to give himself the lead.
Kappet ran wide at the second corner which dropped him to third place and behind Williams Esport’s Nikodem Wisniewski.
Kappet overtook both drivers ahead of him through slipstream aided moves down the long Dottinger Hohe straight, passing Wisniewski on the first lap and Peev for the race lead on the second lap.
This was also the first mixed weather conditions race, meaning it started raining halfway into the one-hour long race and everyone had to tiptoe around the ever dampening circuit before they could fit the wet tyres.
At the end of the pit phase, Kappet and Peev were separated by less than two seconds.
They both had to pass Ufuk Baba who had elected to stay out on the dry tyres when everyone else had fitted the wets.
Baba was quickly caught by Kappet and Peev, however Peev cut in front of Baba when passing him resulting in the two making contact and spinning.
Peev skidded into the barrier which gave his car severe suspension damage which meant he retired from the race, costing himself a spot in the BMW SIM Live event as he was the highest placed driver not to have guaranteed his place there.
Peev’s retirement gave Michal Smidl, another previous race winner and ticket holder, second place and €500 in prize money.
Kappet was completely unchallenged after Peev’s crash as he won by over 15 seconds and won another €1000.
Zbigniew Siara inherited third place with Kuba Brzezinski in fourth place and only three seconds behind Siara on the second to last lap.
Both Brzezinski and Siara hadn’t earned a spot in the in-person BMW SIM Live event, so were fighting for that as well as the final cash prize.
Brzezinski closed his deficit down to 1.5 seconds, but pushed too hard and understeered off into the barrier, dropping himself a further second behind Siara as they were nearing the end of the final lap.
Siara finished in third and is the fifth player from the rFactor 2 championship to be going to the BMW SIM Live event with five more races still to run, and therefore five more players to qualify for the in-person final.
The next round of the series will take place on July 1 with the first of two night races.
