ASC S11 R13 Recap

09 May 2022
Autobahn Sportscar Challenge | Season 11 | Round 13
LMP2/GT3 Multiclass Event | Nürburgring

Jeffrey Ooms took his 5th win of the season tonight in the Prototype Class with the Autobahn Sportscar Challenge at the Nürburgring ahead of Cameron Bidwell and Daniel Neice. Paul Gibson beat Young Park and Ross Booth across the line in the GT Pro Class with Ryan Robertson taking the checkered flag ahead of Franco Margarella and Luke Schmidt in the GT AM Class. Ross Booth and Ryan Robertson became the unofficial season champions in their respective GT Classes while the points race in the Prototype Class is the closest it has been in a long time.

Jeffrey Ooms secured the pole in qualifying with a fast lap clocked at 1:41.206 and took the Prototype Class to the green flag with Paul Gibson leading the GT3 Class drivers soon thereafter. Ooms pulled away to a strong lead ahead of Billy Smith and Cameron Bidwell. Gibson also had a strong start pulling away from Young Park as the entire field had a clean beginning to the 60-minute event. Bidwell, Smith, and Kundinger battled 3 wide over 2nd place in the Prototype Class going into the 2nd lap with Bidwell ending up with the position over Smith and Kundinger in 4th.

The early battles allowed Ooms to build up a gap of over 4 seconds in the first few minutes as Kundinger continued to challenge Smith for 3rd place. Ryan Robertson had a strong lead ahead of Franco Margarella from the front of the GT AM Class as Park struggled to close the gap to Gibson leading in the GT Pro Class ahead of them. The majority of the drivers settled in single file to let the laps count down in the early stages of the race. Robert Tinsey has caught up to Kundinger in 4th and started pressuring for the position with 10 minutes completed.

10 Minutes into the night, technical issues took Smith off the track from 2nd place. Tinsey was involved in a large incident on lap 8 ending his night early as well being forced to pit for significant repair. Soon afterwards, Kundinger also went off track after losing control of his LMP2 falling far back in the running order. Bidwell inherited 2nd place with Daniel Neice running in 3rd as the Nürburgring was proving to be too much for some drivers. Smith had rejoined the race from several laps down from the leader trying to salvage what points he could from the night.

Luc Carbonneau caught Neice 25 minutes in and started challenging for 3rd place staying close on his bumper. Neice became the latest Prototype driver to have bad luck when he found himself caught up in an incident and was knocked back to 4th after Carbonneau misjudged a corner with Leif Peterson moving up to claim 3rd. Neice was able to recover and climbed back up to 3rd place as the drivers passed the halfway point in the race. Ooms continued to lead with a commanding 22 second lead over Bidwell who had over an 11 second lead over Neice. Carbonneau and Peterson stayed close behind Neice going into the 20th lap.

Approaching 20 minutes remaining, the final drivers completed their pit cycles with Ooms in a stronger lead over Bidwell than he had before his stop. Kundinger had managed to get back up to 5th place running around 2 seconds behind Peterson. Ross Booth took the lead in the GT3 Class as Robertson was looking to take the lead back from Bradley Salmon in the GT AM Class which he did on lap 25. Going into the final 10 minutes, Kundinger closed the gap to Peterson down to 1.2 seconds.

Peterson closed up on Neice running within 0.6 with Kundinger still close behind waiting to take advantage with 5 minutes remaining in the night. Ooms was still running in the lead and extended his gap to almost 40 seconds over Bidwell going into the final lap. Peterson, Kundinger, and Carbonneau were all running close behind each other contesting over 4th place as all three closed up on Neice in 3rd. Ooms crossed the line claiming his 5th win with Bidwell, Neice, Peterson, and Kundinger chasing each other across the line in the Prototype Class.

Billy Smith holds onto the lead in the point standings with 226 points. Carter Kundinger closed the gap to the lead to only 9 points going into the final round. Robert Tinsey follows close behind in 3rd place with 197 points. Ross Booth has a commanding lead with 417 points in the GT Pro Class as the unofficial season champion for the class. Paul Gibson holds onto 2nd place with 340 points and Ryan Washeleski following behind by 18 points in 3rd. Ryan Robertson is the unofficial season champion in the GT AM Class with 324 points ahead of Trent Brown who has 184 points and Franco Margarella 14 points behind him.

Satellite Racing, consisting of Robert Tinsey, Ryan Washeleski, and Ryan Robertson, is dominating in the team point standings sitting in the lead with 305 points and almost 70 points ahead of Satellite Racing Apollo in 2nd place. The Autobahn Sportscar Challenge now heads over to Circuit de Spa for the final round of the season on May 23rd with all of the intense action broadcast live at 9:05PM ET only on the Virtual Grip Network!