Wild Monterey Weekend

A wild 5-wide start in the highest SOF race of the week Sunday.

After a calm week in the British Isles to start the season, the iRacing.com Star Mazda Championship took to tight and twisty Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for Week Two.  While it was again Tony Repussard emerging with the points lead, a wild and chaotic week of online racing unfolded in his wake. He emerged from the week with a season-high 206 points for winning the 18:30 GMT Sunday race.

Matijevic (#16) and Mroz (#11)find themselves in trouble after a shaky start by Mroz.

Repussard found himself starting from pole for the week’s highest SOF race, a familiar position for the French sim-racer. Alongside Repussard on the front row was Kevin Korjus, the only other driver to qualify in the 1:18 range in the race. Off the line Korjus and seventh qualifier Rafal Mroz battled massive wheelspin that put them back into the pack. Mroz wouldn’t make it past the start/finish line before he was caught up in a four-wide accident that also involved Nenad Matijevic.

Montes (#8), Korjus and Rodrigues(#2) all end their days early.

Then into Turn 2, Korjus found himself turning into a pinball, first running into the back of Joshua Chin under braking, then the side of Joao Rodrigues exiting the turn. Rodrigues collected the concrete barrier while Korjus continued on track only to be hit by Antonio Montes and Aniket Patel before they could make it to Turn 3. Korjus, Rodrigues and Patel would all retire from the race in addition to Matijevic and Mroz after the start accident.

Fighting an unstable car, Repussard (#1) loses the lead on Lap 2 to Mancusi (#14).

After the mess in the opening turns, it was Repussard leading over Michele Mancusi . But Repussard’s lead proved short-lived as he suffered from low tire pressures and went off entering Turn 2 after the first lap. Mancusi shot to the race lead and attempted to stretch the margin to Repussard, still struggling with tires that weren’t yet up to pressure. Meanwhile, Joshua Chin running in fourth place had a large shunt in Turn 3 after hitting the dirt and spinning into the tire barrier, ruining his day.

Chin (#4) with a huge off in Turn 3, ending a fourth place run. Yann Sanchez (#10) would finish there instead.

Although Mancusi enjoyed a dozen laps in the lead, Repussard regained first place going into Turn 2 on Lap ? and never looked back. The gap to Mancusi grew with each passing lap until the defending series champion held a 12 second lead over Mancusi at the finish, winning the 3286 SOF race.  The runner-up finish paid 193 points to Mancusi, who continues to hold second in the standings. Finishing-out the podium, Fredric Evers rebounded from a disappointing week at the Silverstone circuit to finish third and collected 181 points for a relatively calm drive with only one incident in the race.

The race-winning pass for Repussard on Mancusi on Lap 13.

Taking home top honors in qualifying for the week was Lawrence Smyth, who won the overall pole with a lap of 1:18.405, translating to 102.758 mph or 165.37 km/h. Repussard, Nicolas Bihan, Korjus and Richie Stanaway finished out the week’s top five qualifiers. With the most wins for the week was Fernando M Seixas who took home five victories wins in nine starts at the California course. After the week was said and done, the points emerged as follows:

1.)    Tony Repussard     386
2.)    Michele Mancusi   344
3.)    Joshua Chin             305
4.)    Fredric Evers          291
5.)    Mark Ursel               291

Fredric Evers (#7) emerged from Laguna with a solid points week to jump into the top five overall.

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