Fritsche Champion After Stellar Season

Fritsche was the undisputed CTC champion in 2013 Season 3.

Despite a quiet end to the season, Gernot Fritsche comfortably retook the Classic Teams Championship as the veteran sim-racer fully got to grips with the Lotus 79 on the NTMv5 (new tire model version 5) after two slightly off-colour seasons.

Fritsche finished the season with a massive 134 point lead over second placed Tapani Linnaluoto, with Season 2 championship contender, Nuno Moreira, finishing another 44 points back after a strong late-season showing.

Anthony Goodale bagged the Formula 2 championship and finished a highly impressive 19th overall, three places behind early leader Paul Hackett. Hackett, who was snapped up mid-season by Arrows, finished P16 — just one place behind his Arrows team-mate — after a superb season.

In all 260 sim-racers took part in another excellent Lotus 79 season with 66 of them completing a full eight weeks and 36 taking wins during the course of the season. In all there was 156 online races with more than a dozen going official each week.

The CTC season featured full grids and plenty of official races each week.

In the teams championship, Fritsche’s Escuderia Ferrari netted the overall title, although a late charge almost cost the Prancing Horse the honours.  British marquee Williams, led by Moreira and ably supported by Tony Lambert and Sam Dobie, put in a superb finish to the season to finish just six points back.

Their charge was such that third-placed McLaren finished a massive 126 points back from the top duo. McLaren didn’t finish alone in third place as a similarly superb late season effort dragged French team, Ligier onto equal points, while ATS finished fifth, 87 points back on the third placed pair.

Of the Formula 2 teams, Tiga, Chevron and Osella rounded-out the top three, all embarrassing Wolf Racing and finishing inside the top 20 – an impressive performance.

As always, authentic period liveries were the hallmark of the 2013 S3 CTC.

Most important of all, the CTC Lotus 79 championship provided an excellent, friendly atmosphere with great racing and period paint jobs . . . as always!

The next season starts on Tuesday and once again the classic teams will battle. Will Fritsche retain his title? Can Williams move-up one step on the rostrum?   We’ll find out in 12 weeks time.

Michel Dudognon images.

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