The Deutsche Post 250 was held at the Eurospeedway Lausitz in Germany in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Brazilian Felipe Cesar held pole position ahead of Brock Kidd, winner of the previous two races, with Luke Stokey on the outside of the first row. From the start, Kidd got the best getaway, leapfrogging Cesar to take the lead of the race, an ominous sign for the rest of the field who have become so accustomed to him at the front in recent races. Stokey meanwhile was decidedly sluggish, falling behind a fast starting Will Taylor from row two with Mikko Heininen and Enzo Domenicalli also finding their way past over the opening laps.
On lap 43, for the first time in IndyVirtual history, the field was decimated by “The Big One”. Nick Addison and Marcus Thunder were battling over 8th and 9th positions, when the Australian lost the back end, sliding up into Thunder’s rear left wheel. The two drivers slammed into the wall, and as they rebounded across the track again, Didier Arnaud and Aron Einarsson struck the two cars. Keith Murphy narrowly avoided the carnage, as did Dino Palma and Alex Wright, but Michal Kubat and Daniel Bruner were the next victims, hitting multiple pieces of stricken bodywork from the accident. Finally, Callum Brandon and Pedro Costa also failed to avoid the carnage, adding further debris to the already littered circuit. After 5 laps behind the safety car to fully neutralise the race, the organisers threw the red flag to allow a full clean-up including a barrier repair where the initial hit between Addison and Thunder occurred. Half an hour later, the safety car led the field back out, and after three laps to give the drivers the chance to assess the state of the circuit, the race was back underway. Kidd immediately disappeared down the road as has become customary in IndyVirtual recently, while Mikko Heininen took third place from Taylor, though he started to drop back from the position he had – the reason for which soon revealed itself on lap 73 as he ground to a halt on the infield. Domenicalli’s race improved dramatically from sixth position as he moved all the way up to third by the end of lap 91, thanks to excellent moves on Luke Stokey and Will Taylor as both Kidd and Cesar were asserting their dominance on the rest of the field. Dino Palma saw his hopes of good points literally go up in smoke from 12th on lap 112 as his Jaguar engine expired, while Keith Boston’s race came to an end agonisingly close to the chequered flag with a front right suspension failure with just two laps to go, though the American held onto the car with excellent control in what was a scary incident. After 124 laps of the Lausitz circuit, it was a dominant Brock Kidd who took his third victory in a row, nearly 8 seconds ahead of Felipe Cesar. Yakumi Takahashi made a late charge to snatch third from Will Taylor on the line, while Enzo Domenicalli rounded out the top five.
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April 2018
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