Session reports from the third round of the 2020 VOARS season, here in Zhuhai, China. A fantastic showing last time out from Chloe King saw the rookie soar to the top of the championship, with a nine point lead over Zapatero in second position, who also put in strong performances in Japan to gain ground. QualifyingMuch as in the opening round in Australia, Theo Sorensen proved the class of the field in qualifying, with two lap times better than anyone else to claim pole position for both races. Rookie Riley Shaw impressed by lining up alongside him for both starts too, while a solid session for Zack Drayton sees the British rookie third and fourth in the two races respectively. The two drivers at the top of the Championship had contrasting fortunes meanwhile. Chloe King lines up fourth and eleventh, while Carlos Zapatero is eleventh and sixth, both hoping to make up ground in the races to solidify their Championship positions, as third placed Ethan Knight lines up a consistent fifth in both races. Race OneThey lined up on the grid for the first race, Sorensen on pole angled to close the door on Shaw in second place and claim that inside line. The lights came on, and as soon as they went out the roar of engines filled the air! The top four all got away fairly uniform into turn one, Shaw not quite close enough to get a look up the inside. However, unfortunately Knight really bogged down, and despite going defensive on the inside, found Lazarus alongside on the outside going into turn one... But it's disaster! There's been contact and both drivers are facing the wrong way as turn one tightens into turn two, and Westcott has collected the pair of them! A huge accident, which sadly puts all three out of race one and brings out the safety car. They received the signal that the safety car was coming in a few laps later, and Sorensen began backing up the back. They're coming out of the hairpin... And Sorensen has gone! Shaw reacted well but Drayton was caught napping and goes defensive into the final corner, giving King the line to drive past him on the straight and lift herself onto the rostrum! Excellent awareness. Zapatero benefitted well from the turn one incident, and was 8th at the restart... Make that 7th as the Spaniard swoops around the outside of Bakugo at turn one! That was risky on cold tyres! Not long after that however, King loses a place to Drayton, and then to Winfield... Oh no! She's stuck in 4th gear! She is forced into the pits to retire the car, such a disappointing end to the race for her. Ratanarak meanwhile is really piling the pressure onto Winfield, and sells him a dummy heading down towards turn six! Winfield on the outside... But he turns in too early and across the front of Ratanarak! It's minor front wing damage for Ratanarak, but disaster for Winfield as his radiator took a heavy impact there. He manages to pull over near a recovery area, but sadly his retirement was all his doing. Zapatero continued to make rapid progress, driving like a man possessed! He moved up into fifth, quickly dispatching the wounded Ratanarak for fourth. However in the dying stages Shaw was definitely struggling and Zapatero found himself on the back of the scrap for second. It's coming up to the last lap... Shaw and Drayton are really scrapping! Excellent defensive driving but there's a gap into turns eleven and twelve, and Drayton is going for it! They're both incredibly compromised through twelve, and onto the long back straight Zapatero has had a fantastic launch; they're three wide on the run down the hairpin! Zapatero on the inside, Shaw on the outside... And the Spaniard comes out on top! He moves into second, as Drayton is forced to back out or drive into a wedge at the apex! Truly incredible action right at the death of it! Sorensen ended up winning comfortable from Zapatero, who set the fastest lap late on, with Shaw hanging on the complete the podium for race one. Drayton brings it home in fourth, with Ratanarak having enough of a gap behind to keep hold of fifth after a sublime, albeit tainted, drive. Yi, Jansen, Little, Nyarko and Baatar complete the top ten; full results below. Race TwoFor race two it's once again Sorensen and Shaw on the front row, with Lazarus behind in third. Once again they all get away very well, with the field more or less line astern into the first turn; except Chloe King! A camera shot back to the grid shows that she simply failed to get away from the grid! The mechanics, unable to get the car going, were forced to retire the car and rolled her into the garage. A disastrous weekend unfolding for the Brit, and her time at the top of the championship is looking more and more shortlived. The top three quickly started getting away, but it was shortlived as Sorensen started losing power! The leading trio lost time rapidly to those behind, before Sorensen eventually pulled off the track to retire the car. He was looking on for another strong result, and will be heartbroken. There was little action in the first half, although with clean air Shaw was able to start pulling away and built a comfortable buffer back to Lazarus, who was running in an excellent second place. However, at around the halfway point, Drayton was challenging for second and got alongside on the run down to turn thirteen, but locked up! He's gone wide, and Lazarus retains second; Drayton drops from fourth to sixth, promoting Knight and Zapatero to attack Lazarus. The four spent lap after lap following nose to tail, Lazarus launching well off of the long turn twelve every time which meant nobody could get close to him. All four were keen to not make a mistake, and were playing the cautious game. However eventually the Australian started taking far too much from his rear tyres, and was under threat all at once from Knight and Zapatero! He had a twitchy moment onto the back straight late on, allowing the pair to sail past, while Lazarus defended the inside line headed into the hairpin to deny the position to Drayton. While Knight and Zapatero rapidly streaked away on their healthier tyres, Drayton lost a couple seconds still stuck for several laps, until Lazarus made the same mistake again! This allowed Drayton cleanly through before the braking zone, and Lazarus dropped back soon after. Knight ended up setting the fastest lap, but the damage was done and Shaw cruised home to an uncontested victory. Shaw and Zapatero stayed second and third respectively to the flag, with Drayton fourth and Lazarus a distant, but still respectable, fifth. Ratanarak finished sixth in another solid race for the Rookie, with Jansen, Winfield, Bishop, and Little completing the top ten. With Little, Bishop, Winfield, and Jansen occupying the front two rows for tomorrow's reverse grid race, they'll be hoping for a strong performance, while anxious of the quicker drivers behind, while Zapatero will once again have plenty of overtaking to do come the race, starting in the lower reaches of the top ten with Shaw and Knight. Race ThreeAfter a very eventful day yesterday, we have Josh Little lining up in pole position, with Roman Bishop alongside in P2. King, who had been leading the championship coming into this weekend, had a dismal start to the weekend and starts from the back row of the grid. Meanwhile her championship rival Zapatero has been driving brilliantly; he'll start the third race from eighth position. Kwabena Nyarko was unfortunate enough to not make the grid, with the team unable to fix a hydraulic issue that developed not long before the race start. Once again the lights went out and the drivers went barrelling down towards turn one! Roman Bishop was up alongside, with pole-sitter Little deciding discretion is the better part of valour and yielding the the Palau driver, while Xavier Jansen seized this opportunity and snuck through into second as well. A few laps in and Zapatero and Knight were closely following Drayton and hounding him for position, and they managed to force the rookie into an error under the pressure! It was only a small lockup, but it was enough for Knight to pass both Zapatero and Drayton, while Zapatero was caught slightly unaware. However, Drayton seemed to have more issues, locking up more and more frequently in the following laps, until he suffered a scary brake failure coming into turn eleven; the car speared off to the right under braking, putting an end to Drayton's weekend. Lazarus was driving very well, he made his way up to fifth position in what has arguably been his strongest weekend this season. However, his car sadly lost all drive shortly after accelerating out of the hairpin of turn thirteen; incredibly he was able to coast the car to the pits. Towards the dying stage of the race, Knight made a mistake in front of Zapatero, releasing the Spaniard who quickly showed his pace, catching and passing cars left and right, pushing forward constantly on the attack. He found himself in fifth, then fourth, while Knight was making his way past the cars that had passed him after his half spin. Westcott had been quiet but productive this race, incredibly finding himself in third place late on. However, Zapatero soon caught and passed him, having been in unstoppable form all weekend, and it was only a few laps before Knight followed him to demote Westcott to what was still an impressive fifth place. Bishop and Jansen had been lapping consistently, albeit several seconds apart, and looked comfortable in their respective positions, with Zapatero coming in behind to pick up his third podium of the weekend. Knight pulled away from Westcott to finish fourth, with Westcott hanging onto that fifth place. Josh Little and Jon Winfield dropped off severely during the race; they came home in P6 and P7 respectively. Shaw drove well late on on well managed tyres to finish in eighth, followed home by Ratanarak who acheived another points scoring position, and Navuluri rounded out the top ten after some initial poor luck in race one. StandingsZapatero was in dominant form this weekend, and has yet to finish outside the points this season; he takes the lead of the championship with a solid twenty one point gap back to Knight, who moves into second place. Sorensen moves back up from fourth and is just two points behind in third position. Meanwhile, Chloe King drops back to fourth place, with a whopping 35 points to first place, while Drayton solidifies fifth place somewhat, despite looking less and less like a championship challenger this season.
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