Auto Club Speedway hosted the first oval race in The Race IndyPRO Championship by Formula SimRacing as the rFactor 2 contest reached its penultimate round.
Janos Bracsok was the fastest in qualifying with Jiri Toman second, Williams Esports’ Petar Brljak third and championship leader Jernej Simoncic in fourth.
Both Bracsok and Toman ruled themselves out of race win contention early on as Toman locked up under braking for the pits and ran across the grass to drop down the order before being hit by Dennis Jordan to bring out the race’s second caution.
During that caution Bracsok was one of four drivers who pitted a lap later than most, dropping him from the race lead to 16th.
Jan Woznica and Alen Terzic emerged as the front two and kept their positions at the front of the field until Woznica spun when exiting the pitlane.
The Polish driver pitted earlier than the rest of the leading pack, but on exiting the pits and taking off the pit limiter he spun and went straight into the path of Terzic.
Both Burst Simplexity Esport drivers narrowly avoided the accident ahead of them and assumed the top two positions while Woznica and Terzic retired.
That crash caused the first caution period of five that occured in the second half of the race.
In the brief spells of full speed racing Brljak and Philip Kraus had caught up to the Burst Esport pair of Simoncic and Michi Hoyer with Kraus the race leader when the last caution period ended at the start of lap 116.
Brljak initially tried to pass Kraus around the outside and then cut in behind to take the inside line with three laps to go.
As he pulled out of the slipstream between Turns 2 and 3 he lost ground to Kraus and had to drop back behind, ultimately finishing behind the American.
The win for Kraus is his first in the championship, beating his previous best result of fourth at Portland.
Brljak finished second with Simonic third and outscoring his nearest championship rivals.
With only one round in the championship left to go Simoncic has demonstrated remarkable consistency as he’s finished on the podium seven times with the other two results being a pair of fourth places in the opening round.
Alex Siebel is second in the drivers’ championship after crossing the line in sixth and is 30 points behind the championship leader.
One position behind Siebel was Hoyer, but a ninth place for the other Evolution Motorsports driver Jordan means Burst Simplexity Esport is only 10 points behind Evolution in the teams’ championship.
The crash between Terzic and Woznica and a disconnection for Martin Stefanko means Stefanko and Terzic fell from fourth and fifth in the drivers’ standings to sixth and seventh and are only just about in mathematical contention for the title.
A double points Indy300 final round next week means there’s 70 points on offer to the race winner and anyone of the top seven drivers could become the IndyPRO champion.
