LFS Beginner's Cup Round 7 Race Report
Written by Joseph Ellis, 18 November '08
The final round of the LFS Beginner's Cup was in the form of a 1 hour endurance race using GT2 restricted FZR, FXR and XRR cars.
Following a rolling start, Kenneth O' Keefe grabbed an early lead. Novak, who began in second place got a rather slow start, and as a result the cars of Lobb, Atkinson and El Alaoui were right on his tail. Meanwhile, at the back of the grid, Zanetti lost control of his car, taking a trip over the grass and nearly spinning after clipping the grass on the run down to the first turn. This left him in second-to-last place.
Whilst O'Keefe was gradually increasing his lead, it was all to play for amongst the four cars behind him. Novak was still leading this four car cluster, and Atkinson was right behind him in 3rd place. El Alaoui, who was also among the cars fighting for podium positions was spun out by Lobb, who accidentally made contact with his car.This incident allowed Russell, Keaveney and Laprevotte to overtake Lobb. El Alaoui on the other hand was left in last place following the incident.
Further up the front of the grid going down the long straight for the first time, Atkinson slipstreamed Novak, managing to make the pass which moved him into second place. Russel became a further victim of the fight for track space in the first lap, spinning his FXR after clipping the grass. El Alaoui was already making up places after his crash, overtaking the less experienced drivers with ease.
Ten minutes into the race, at the back of the grid, Karsten successfully made a pass on Fenlon to claim tenth place. However, his success was short lived, because in the next corner, he locked up and went wide under braking. Fenlon regained his place, and Novak also passed him.
A quarter of the way through the race, O'Keefe had pulled out an 8 second lead over Atkinson. Novak and Lobb were looking to pass Laprevotte, and El Alaoui was also gaining on 6th place driver Keaveney. After a close battle, El Alaoui managed to make the pass on the penultimate corner of the sixth lap, seventeen minutes into the race. As lap 7 started, Bingham was the first driver to make the required pit-stop.
Both Lobb and Novak overtook Laprevotte on the Start/Finish straight at the 20 minute mark. An Uncalled for bit of weaving by Lobb (later found out to have been caused by his screen-saver swithing on) on the straight resulted in a hard impact with Novak. Novak spun 1 and a half times before coming to a stop at a very dangerous place at the start of the first corner. The danger of the situation became very real after Novak pulled right out into the racing line, and into the path of El Alaoui's car. This left El Alaoui spinning hopelessly round in circles in the gravel trap. He was eventually able to free himself, but all the hard work making up positions had gone to waste. Further bad luck came a few minutes later, when on the same corner, El Alaoui went wide and once again took a trip through the gravel.
Twenty six minutes in, the field was very spread out. O'Keefe had a 14 second lead over Atkinson, and Bingham, at the back, was over half a lap behind. Novak's race was not going as well as he could have hoped either. He hit the tyres and spun on the final corner of lap 9, allowing Russell to overtake. Meanwhile, at the back of the grid, Karsten and Aquino were taking it in turns passing each other, and as it also seemed, taking it in turns to spin or go wide on each corner. Aquino came out on top, and was now in 8th position.
Half way through the race, Laprevotte recieved a drive-through penalty for crossing multiple pit boxes when pitting. Novak also recieved a Stop-go penalty for the incident he caused with El Alauoi when recovering from a crash, 10 minutes earlier. The first time he went into serve it, the software did not register it, and so, he had to go round again. Novak was now in 12th place and had slowed to a crawl, due to his badly damaged car.
As the leader began lap 13, Karsten suffered a tyre failure, which resulted in a spectacular crash in which he took out Aquino. El Alaoui narrowly avoided being the innocent victim of yet another accident. By now, Novak had been lapped by nearly all the cars, and pitted for a THIRD consecutive time to repair his car.
With 20 minutes remaining, O'Keefe was 21 seconds ahead of second place Atkinson. Lobb was in 3rd, Keaveney 4th, and one of the main championship contenders, Laprevotte, was in 5th. Five minutes later, El Alaoui overtook Russell to claim 6th place.
With 10 minutes to go, Klenke recieved a penalty for the same reason as Laprevotte: crossing too many pit boxes. O'Keefe, the race leader, made his pit-stop at this point. He had clocked up such a lead that he was still 37 seconds ahead of second place Atkinson, even after his pitstop. As final stages of the race were reached, the main action was in 4th and 5th positions. Laprevotte was closing in on Keaveney, and succeeded in making a spectacular pass with just 2 minutes, 45 seconds remaining. Keaveney was unable to regain the place, despite his best efforts to do so in the final minutes.
The race ended with O'Keefe, Atkinson and Lobb occupying 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Laprevotte was crowned the LFS Beginner's cup Season 2 champion, after finishing a respectable 4th place in the race. Atkinson later became the race winner, following time penalties given to O'Keefe for unsafe driving under the safety car.
