16th place in charity race during 27th grande finale of GOCC (WOSP)

Today, during the 27th finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, the charity race “Simracing for the GOCC” took place. In order to take part in it, each participant bought a coupon worth 10, 20 or 50 PLN, which supported the GOCC account. It was also required to make a good lap time in the pre-qualifications to be qualified to the right group of players. In pre-qualifications, I took 20th place with less than 1.7s loss to the leader, which qualified me to the race together with all-Polish leaders. It is worth mentioning that the times of the top ten competitors fit in 1s, which shows how high the level was.

fot. Mike Kowalski

Qualification, unfortunatelly went below my capabilities and I took 24th place with the time 1.25.607. The race also did not start well, because on Turn 1 I was pushed to the edge of the track, but I managed to enter the bend and drive to T2. It is possible that it saved me from the accident on T2, because I managed to get around it and gain a few positions. Later I got two, three positions after the mistakes of others and rode in the 14th place, but finally I made a mistake on T4 and flew in the sand. Before I got back to the track, I fell a few positions and then chased few laps trying to recover.

photo: Mike Kowalski

Thanks to the fairly driving and minor driver errors in front of me, I gained two positions 5 minutes before race end. I had LKRISS on the tail, which approached so much that on the penultimate lap after my one little mistake we rode to the Corkscrew side by sie. I drove the first corner tightly leaving him a place, but he preferred not to risk contact and let it go. I drove the last lap with him almost on the bumper, but I drove 16th.

photo: Mike Kowalski

In the second race I was in the sandwich on the start, but I got out of this defensive hand, because rivals were turning around. Later, just like in the first race, the accident on T2 and T3, which I bypassed and entered the 12th place. And so I was driving a few laps behind Szymon and I was approaching lap by lap, because probably the pressure was doing theirs. Finally, on the bend before the start/finish straight, when I wanted to attack, my opponent took a defensive strategy, braked earlier to have a better exit, and I was too close enough to be able to resist heavy braking, blocked wheels and overheated tires. This probably contributed to my mistake and I flew again in the sand on T4 and dropped to 20th place. I had to drive carefully to the end of lap because of overheated and dirty tires and I already saw a poor chance to catch up with someone. And yet! On the last lap and the penultimate turn I passed one driver leaving the side of the road, and on the start/finish straight I passed the next one, which turned on the last corner. So I finished on the 18th position, which gave me the 16th position in the general classification.

The race can be viewed on YouTube: