The Buddh International Circuit in Uttar Pradesh plays host to the second round of the eVirtual season. After a great qualifying effort, rookie Urmo Kruuda starts on pole on the soft tyres, giving him a likely advantage off the start line compared to the Renault of Kiara Thunder, who is running the hard tyres and a 1 stop strategy. Others to watch out for at the start on the soft tyres are the K8ley’s, Arrow’s and Manziel’s, along with Hölzberg, Stefánsson and Addison. Meanwhile Thunder is joined on the hard compound by only Roberts and Oliversson, leaving the remaining half of the field running on Mediums. Part 1As expected Urmo Kruuda made good advantage of his soft tyres at the start, racing to a 2.5 second lead over Thunder in the opening laps. Behind the top 2 Zozulya had made progress, picking off a slow starting Ethan Matthews before duelling his way past Sam Hudson and Leo Brzyski for 3rd place. Further back the hard tyres were not working out for Roberts and Oliversson who both dropped back in the opening laps, but it was Zander Brynildsen who had the best start, gaining 4 places to put himself just outside the points positions. Oleksandr Zozulya’s charge continued, as he picked off Kiara Thunder for 2nd on Lap 4. But hot on his heels was the Lada of Sam Hudson, and on Lap 7 Hudson made his move at the end of the long back straight, taking a 2nd place that soon became the lead after Urmo Kruuda pitted from the lead to change his soft tyres. Further back, after a slow start Aron Einarsson was on a mid stint charge. Biding his time behind Matthews and Maxwell as they fought hard over 7th place, Einarsson picked the two Brits off on two consecutive laps to jump up to 5th after Kruuda’s stop. Towards the tail end of the field BMW’s poor reliability struck again, as Hölzberg was forced to retire with a 2nd mechanical failure. The other notable struggler was Cosmo Roberts, who continued to drop back on hard tyres that the Opel seemed unable to get to grips with. Just 3 short laps after the soft tyre pit stops the medium runners dived in at the end of Lap 10. Suddenly it was becoming clear that Kruuda may have been on the wrong strategy, as Hudson’s stop saw him come out of the pits comfortably ahead of his rookie teammate. Kruuda also found himself under pressure from the Downton of Oleksandr Zozulya who was looking to put himself onto the podium to continue a solid start to the season. Maximilian Thunström was continuing his recovery from a poor qualifying, picking off Bergkvist and Barclay to find himself in 12th, behind the battling duo of Cosmo Roberts and Roberto de la Fuente. Further back, mechanical gremlins continued to plague the field, as Zander Brynildsen became the second retirement of the race on Lap 9. On Lap 13 the battle between Roberts and de la Fuente became a little too heated as the two tangled wheels in the Turn 15 sweeper. Fortunately both were able to continue initially, but accident damage forced both to retire just before the midpoint of the race. With the race still green, Kiara Thunder peeled off at the end of Lap 15 to put on new hard tyres, followed by Urmo Kruuda on softs. This restored Sam Hudson to the lead, and he was beginning to look like a strong threat for the win, with his primary threat coming from Oleksandr Zozulya running 4 seconds behind. Jochem van Snelheid was holding on to 3rd place but he did not seem able to match the pace of the two leaders, while Urmo Kruuda was struggling to pull enough of a gap on his shorter stints and dropped to 9th after his second stop. Part 2Just off of the podium places, Aron Einarsson had been putting in solid lap times in his Renault. Waved past his teammate Thunder, running an alternate strategy, Einarsson soon found himself on the back of Jochem van Snelheid and on Lap 18 he made the pass stick, although his excitement at getting the podium was tempered by the 8.5 second gap to Zozulya in front. The other Renault of Kiara Thunder was struggling on the hard tyres, being passed by Thunström, although staying ahead of the resurgent Kruuda, who was using his soft tyres to slowly pick off overtakes. Another driver dropping places was BMW’s Kip Maxwell, who made an error while battling Matthews that saw him drop behind the Downton before being passed by both Kruuda and Brzyski on the softs. Dropping even more places was the Maserati of Gianluca di Stefano, the Italian team’s maiden race start ending in disappointment with a battery failure. With the race entering the final 10 laps, nearly the entire field were in the pits bar the hard tyre runners of Thunder and Oliversson. With the final shootout upcoming it seemed a 2 horse race between Hudson and Zozulya, with the latter slowly but surely gaining on Hudson. Thunder was hoping to hold on with her hard tyres, but that task became more and more difficult as the Renault’s gearbox gradually deteriorated. With just 5 laps to go the Renault was forced to retire, leaving Aron Einarsson to carry the flag for the French team. Einarsson was being stalked by the Jaguar’s of Thunström and van Snelheid, and the Icelandic driver was using every trick in the book to keep them behind. As the race entered the final lap Einarsson still held 3rd place, and after a mistake for Jochem van Snelheid he had managed to shake one of the 2 chasing Jaguars. Up front Sam Hudson looked set for victory, after giving Lada’s engineers a fright with a late race error that nearly allowed Zozulya to within a second. In the end it was a step too far for Zozulya, who had to settle for 2nd behind Hudson. As the two crossed the line the camera’s instantly cut away to see if Einarsson’s defensive stand could last. By now Thunström was right up the gearbox of the Renault and at the final corner he threw a desperate lunge down the inside. Einarsson held his nerve however, out-dragging the Swede to take a podium place by a mere 0.04 seconds. Van Snelheid got his season properly underway with a solid 5th place, leading the disappointed rookie Urmo Kruuda who could not quite make the soft strategy work. With a last lap overtake Ethan Matthews got his first points of the season in 7th, ahead of K8ley’s Leo Brzyski. Once again, Kip Maxwell’s pace seemed to fade as the race went on, dropping to 9th but still scoring BMW’s first points. Porsche’s Jules Barclay rounded out the points, after overtaking his teammate off camera in the final laps. But as the celebrations began, it was Sam Hudson to take the plaudits after using the optimal medium strategy to control the race and take the 3rd win of his career. Whether he can use this early success to have his first multiple win season or even push for the title is still unknown, but it seems that he will have to contend with Thunström and Zozulya, who are the early championship leaders after being the only two to take consecutive top 5s. Consistency is key in eVirtual, and if either of them can stay consistent in the chaos of the Macau eV-Prix they will be established as strong title contenders. Final ClassificationChampionship Standings
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