Having splashed through the British streets on his way to yet another pole position, Brock Kidd retook the championship lead from Oleksandr Zozulya yesterday, with the Ukrainian settling for second. But with rain potentially forecasted for the race, the tension was high as the first British eV-Prix began. Once again, Kidd started well and held off the pack at the first corner, ahead of Zozulya and Felipe Cesar. The noticeable changes came at the bottom end of the top 10, as Olen Inman struggled off the start line and dropped back from 8th to 11th, while Luke Stokey made up 3 places to move up to 9th with some clean moves. Elsewhere, Alexander McLaughlin made up two places and Luiz Santos retired after pulling into the pit lane. Towards the front, Kip Maxwell, starting 6th, seemed to be in good nick as he slipped past Sebastian Bergkvist and Will Taylor to move up to 4th, before setting similar lap times to the top 3.
While the top 4 remained strung out across the opening stage, they started to close in, as the forecast became more prominent, the chasing three began to close in on Kidd. As desperation creeped in, Cesar spun off on the exit of turn 7, dropping 3 places to 6th. As Zozulya couldn’t overtake Kidd, he started to come under pressure from Maxwell. After a few laps of being glued to the Jaguar gearbox, the Downton pulled off a lovely late move into the final corner to take 2nd. Then, when it looked like the two teammates were set to face off for the lead, Kidd spun into turn 1 with brake issues, putting him out of the race in a crucial moment for the championship. In the (socially distanced) stands though, there was plenty of cheer as the home hero Maxwell took the lead. There was more action behind – Aron Einarsson locked up at turn 5, going off and losing 3 places, while Inman stormed back from a poor start with a series of great overtakes to move into 7th, just behind Stokey who, now 6th, was having his best race so far. Kidd was also joined on the side-lines by Rodrigo Sanchez and Robert Steffanson after the former spun on the exit of a corner and was collected by the latter. As the race reached half distance, the rain began to fall, and the track became slippery. Immediately there was drama, as Taylor went straight off at turn 9 and into the barrier, bringing out the safety car and marking another hammer blow to his title hopes. Even with the pack driving at reduced speed, they were still struggling for grip as the eVirtual cars experienced wet conditions for the first time in a race. The safety car came in after 5 laps, joined by Ivan Lesic who retired with more hydraulic issues. Maxwell pulled away quickly, looking at home in the rainy conditions, while Toivonen immediately skidded off at turn 1. He kept his Highwind out of the barriers but dropped two places in the process. Judson Sikes was not so lucky as after a few laps, he binned it at the penultimate corner. Amid all this, only two overtakes took place, with McLaughlin passing Jochem van Snelheid for 10th, and Refugio Boyer overtaking Niklas Kehlmann in the all-important battle to avoid the wooden spoon. With the final stage coming up, all each driver needed to do was keep their head to hold their position, as overtaking proved difficult. Unfortunately, Cesar couldn’t, as he spun off again on the exit of turn 7, to drop to 6th. Stuart Harrison, who was on course for point, did likewise a lap later, dropping him well out of the top ten. McLaughlin made up another place with a move on Toivonen, while Steffen Rosenberg ended an anonymous race with a steering issue. For Maxwell, there were no issues, and a fantastic home win was completed as he crossed the line, with the fastest lap from earlier on adding an extra point to his tally. Zozulya settled for 2nd with Bergkvist returning to the podium. Stokey was delighted with 4th, as was Inman in 5th with Porsche’s best all round performance of the season. Cesar’s mistakes left him 6th, Einarrson was solid 7th though he admitted to expecting more. McLaughlin took 8th in a damage limitation race, Toivonen 9th to get some more points and van Snelheid rounded out the top 10.
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