until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
A 1-2 finish for Coanda Simsport in the final round of the first season in the BMW SIM GT Cup means it has four different pairs of drivers who have qualified for the BMW SIM Live final to be held at the end of the year.
So far six different duos have guaranteed their place in the final and all 12 drivers are a part of either Team Redline or Coanda Simsport.
In a change of format for the final round of season one, only invited, well-performing teams who had yet to qualify for the BMW SIM Live final were eligible to take part.
Coanda locked out the front row in qualifying at the Nurburgring, with Dayne Warren on pole position and David Williams in second.
Romain Grosjean’s R8G Esports outfit completed the second row, surprisingly in front of both Team Redline entries.
In the opening stages of the race Warren was able to stretch away from his fellow Coanda driver and built up a lead of over 11 seconds over the rest of the pack.
He was unchallenged through to the pitstop phase and driver change halfway through the two-hour race as Warren handed driving duties over to Mack Bakkum.
Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola of Team Redline Blue sacrificed new tyres in order to spend less time in the pits which was enough of a time-saver to ensure he jumped ahead of Bakkum and into the lead of the race.
But the worn tyres meant Uusi-Jaakkola kept track position over Bakkum for only a lap before Bakkum took back first place and went on to win the race by 30 seconds.
Previously the duo of Warren and Bakkum had a best result in the series of fourth place, which was from the Silverstone round.
Only the top two positions qualify for the end-of year-final and Uusi-Jaakkola’s strategy meant he slowly fell down and out of contention.
Chris Lulham in the Team Redline Red entry pitted one lap later than most others, which helped his team-mate Lorenzo Colombo to be the closest challenger for second place against Williams and Paschalis Gkergkis in the second Coanda car.
Gkergkis came under pressure from Colombo, eventually culminating in contact between them as Colombo rear-ended the back of the Coanda car under braking for Turn 1.
The Team Redline Red driver was ordered by race control to hand the position back and he wasn’t able to get back in front before the end of the race.
So Gkergkis and Williams became the sixth pair in total to have made the BMW SIM Live final and earned their first prize money of the tournament for far.
Both R8G Esports teams had lacklustre races as they fell to eighth and ninth positions despite their second-row start, losing time due to slow-down penalties and incidents on track.
The second season of the BMW SIM GT Cup doesn’t have a confirmed start date as of yet but will feature another five races that will complete the 12 driver pairings from iRacing that will take part in the live final.
This is currently intended to be an in-person event in Munich during December.
