FSR World Championships Austria Race Review

[David O'Reilly]

Speilberg circuit provides a thrilling tactical race.

Maiden pole for Jonny Simon and front row lock out for Ghostspeed.

Team orders, no this is 2015 not 2002 and the Styrian Alps alive with the sound of inter-team battles !

Brjak passes team mate Parisis on final lap for the win to extend WDC lead. ​

The Formula Sim Racing teams arrived in the Speilberg region of Austria to contest round Six of the FSR World Championships with Petar Brjak seemingly pulling clear of Jim Parisis with 29 points the difference. Parisis needed to start to out-point his fellow Twister driver soon or the drivers championship could start to slip away.

We suggested after Canada that Patel, Bigazzi, Simoncic and Simon might start to exert some infuence soon, so lets see what happened.
Before we do that we will touch on this unique and character laden circuit.

The Track​

The Österreichring was first built in 1969 after a non championship race (won by F1 legend Jack Brabham) in 1963 and a championship round in 1964 were held at nearby Zeltweg airfield. The track which has an altitude of 600 metres had in its 5.9 km 1970s iteration a very high top speed and average speeds (Piquet's 1987 pole lap was 255.7 kph average) and held some considerable dangers including a narrow 30 feet wide pit straight. It closed in 1987 for safety reasons.

Eight years later a young designer named Herman Tilke redesigned it to incorporate a more technical in-field and some tighter corners such as the final Jochen Rindt Kurve becoming two right hand corners instead of one. When completed in 1997 the squaring off of the corners required a set-up compromise that had the desired effect and it was no longer a “Balls out of the Cockpit” death trap. The track was right but the rest of the facilities struggled to cope.

It again fell into disuse after 2003 when F1 out-grew the off track facilities and was purchased and refurbished by Dietrich Mateschitz to its 1997-2003 layout. It re-opened in 2011.

The alpine setting and the considerable elevation changes create a unique atmosphere and flavour as the drivers tackle the Styrian Hillside.
From the lowest point at the pit straight the drivers climb to turn one “Castrol Edge” and then climb again to turn two “Remus”. If Remus feels familiar it's because it was the inspiration for a later Tilke corner at his first scratch built circuit , turn four at Sepang.

Turn three “Schlossgold” is the beginning of the descent. It's tricky as the engine and gearbox seem determined to head left and down hill before everything else. Drivers need good set up and most often some counter-steer. Only the bravest will try to pass here.

Turn four “Rauch”, left hander, falls away a little but it's real challenge is the total lack of any sighting points for turn-in. So hard to get the entry right on a corner where you do need to get the entry right. It's a hard corner on tyres so rubber build up is high. Get wide off the racing line and its very tricky. Combined with turn five “Wurth Kurve” it has the ability to take a lot from the front right tyre if not driven well.
Wurth Kurve needs enough kerb to get a fast line and throttle to accelerate, but not too much as the car will still be a bit twisted.
Then it's accelerate hard to turn seven“Rindt”. A big commitment corner that can make a great lap time or cause a track limits issue very easily. No one would battle through “Rindt” now would they?
Finally through turn 8 “Pricy Soft Drink”.

Its seen its share of F1 dramas. Barrichello got his “Fernando is faster than you” moment in 2002 when directed to move over to hand Schumacher the win. The controversy that followed resulted in the creation of rule# 39.1.
Berger once won here with hard tyres on one side of the car and soft on the other!

Qualifying.​

Jonny Simon and Jernej Simoncic indeed made their mark with a Ghostspeed lock out of the front row.
Pro driver Michele D Alessandro currently third in the Pro Championship stepped up two levels and made up the top three with a time only two thousandths from Simoncic.

Race​

Several drivers including Parisis and Brzezinski chose to start on primes. Parisis for the second time in two races.

The Ghostspeed cars made a clean getaway to consolidate their front row position and their chances. Unfortunately D Alessandro was caught in a “Twister sandwich” into Turn 2 and a small spin momentarily left him in P20.

A pattern started to emerge with Jonny Simon showing massive pace and consistency pulled clear leaving a group of four drivers to fight for second place.

Indeed Simoncic, Bigazzi, Parisis and Brjak joined in a fight that would go hammer and tongs for literally the whole race.

At lap 10 Simon had 2.6 seconds gap to second place but second place to seventh place was covered by six seconds.

At lap 21 Simon had 9 sec and second to fifth were all on the same second!

At lap 39 the same dogfight was still on with the same four drivers in a one second space on the road.

Simoncic dropped back into this fight due to an engine stall in his pit box, still he cleverly managed to use the undercut to avoid part of the fight and control this group a couple of times but it would come back to bite him when the shorter earlier stints meant his tyres had to do more at the end. He had pulled the trigger on the undercut twice, Twice it had worked but at lap 63 he had no rounds in the chamber when attacked by Parisis on fresher rubber into the tricky turn 4. That move was for the lead, why?

Lap 44: Bigazzi from a great second position had a huge over-steer moment exit of turn 8 suffering terminal damage. Sadly Bigazzi's great pace had not yet yielded him the result.

Leader crashes out.

Lap 45: Simon is in a commanding lead of 10 seconds. It's possibly the first time he has been the “scout car” and the first one to have to wake the lapped cars to their upcoming role in letting the top drivers race through. In passing Danny van der Niet he appears to have gotten a little “emotionally communicative” with the cars body language just at the wrong time. The tricky entry to Turn four was precise enough and Simon's car ran wide of the rubbered line and onto the marbles. He was in the gravel with damage and it was game over. 45 laps in the lead, a ten second gap to second and it all seemed a formality that the Australian driver was to take his debut win.

To search for a more emotional blue flag moment we would have to look back beyond the “Cucumber” in Sepang to Suzuka in 1993. Eddy Irvine had the temerity to pass the leader Ayrton Senna to unlap himself and received the communication back in the pits of Senna's avenging fist.


With Bigazzi's departure the four drivers who were in that fight for second were now three and in a fight for the win. Occupying a 1.15 sec strip of race track Parisis, Simoncic and Brjak stepped it up, no longer happy to use a one second length of track they now wanted to use the exact same bit of track.


Lap 58: and Brjak attacks Parisis. Simoncic fires his last round and takes primes. They are fast here and stable but they lack that last ounce of pace that the options offer on low fuel. If you try to get it from them they will overheat, will Simoncic make it work? He returns into first place once the others pit for options. In the meantime Patel is closing down the gap to the main battle.

It doesn't quite work for Simoncic.

Lap 63: Parisis attacks him into turn four, the scene of his team mates demise and Parisis has the lead. Simoncic from first place, by the end of the lap is in fourth as Patel too squeezes past. It looks like Simoncic prime tyres are gone, he pits and returns behind Brzezinski and Disley in seventh! Armed with fresh options and low fuel he sets the timing boards alight and passes both of them to regain fifth place.

Lap 67: Brjak decides it's “Hammer time” and attacks Parisis again. It's not 2002, Ross Brawn isn't on the pit wall and the gloves are off.

Lap 70: he fails with a pass attempt on the outside of turn three.

Lap 71: (final lap) it seems the lesson of lap 70 is learned and he does a little fakie to the outside, Parisis covers the centre of the track to make the outside route unprofitable and Brjak dives inside and passes into Turn three. It was superb racing by the WDC leader.

The racing between the Twister drivers has been intense. The garage would be awkward after the race.


It's been a dramatic race. The Ghost Speed drivers had the pace to take first and second but the consistency and strategy of Brjak, Parisis and Patel completed the package and the podium. We imagine that Simon and Simoncic will come back stronger and wiser.

Daniel Kiss from seventh on the grid takes fourth only 1.3 sec adrift.

Jernej Simoncic took valuable points in fifth but Canada and here show a win is possible.

Sixth, Kuba Brzezinski, climbs 13 spots after qualifying woes.

Seventh Blair Disley.

Eight Daniel Brewer, sold performance but we know he wants to beat his team mate Kuba fair and square rather than with the stewards help like in China.

Ninth Dian Kostadinov

Tenth and first ever WC points to Ace driver Pashalis Gergis.

Minor Honors

Fastest lap Jernej Simoncic 1m05.874 (Lap 67)
Most places gained Kuba Brzezinski (13 places to P6).

We have to shout out to Jeroen Kweekel to congratulate him on a superb solo race commentary.


Results-Top Ten

1. Petar Brljak Twister 2Fast4You

2. Jim Parisis Twister Racing Team +0.499

3. Muhammed Patel Twister 2Fast4You +0.990

4. Daniel Kiss Twister Racing Team +1.331

5. Jernej Simoncic GhostSpeed Racing Team +16.384

6. Kuba Brzezinski Origin Front Row Racing +17.459

7. Blair Disley GS Engineering +18.404

8. Daniel Brewer Origin Front Row Racing +26.907

9. Dian Kostadinov Eventa Simracing +31.980

10. Pashalis Gergis Avid Chronic Racing Team +35.578

Full results HERE.


It leaves the World Drivers Championships standings looking like this.
Brjak has moved 36 points clear with 8 rounds remaining.
Patel has moved to within one point of Brzezinski.

1. Petar Brljak Croatio CRO 126
2. Jim Parisis Greece 90
3. Kuba Brzezinski Poland 67
4. Muhammed Patel United Kingdom 66
5. Daniel Kiss Hungary 37
6. Francesco Bigazzi Italy 35
7. Jernej Simoncic Slovenia 28
8. John-Eric Saxén Finland 27
9. Blair Disley Australia 23
10. David Greco Italy 18
. Marco Conti Italy 18
12. Dian Kostadinov Bulgaria 12
. Daniel Brewer United Kingdom 12
14. Morgan Morand France 10
. Carlos Martín Spain 10
16. Enrico Di Loreto Italy 8
. Patrick De Wit Netherlands 8
18. Eros Masciulli Italy 4
. Marek Godek Slovakia 4
20. Pashalis Gergis Greece 1
. Danny van der Niet Netherlands 1
. Jonny Simon Australia 1


Just a reminder, We don't see it all from every drivers view. If your race provided some action that you would like to have reported in this publication please use the comments section of GPCOS results. We will check and use your race reports and comments therein.
All photos by @Pashalis Gergis