Hypercar S2 R1 Review

Warning - this is my first time writing a review, which means my English won't be perfect and there can be some errors. Keep that in mind

After about 6 months, the Hypercar series is back! With 1 new team, 3 revamped teams and a new quali format it was made to be more competetive than ever - and to see if that was true, we went to host the first Hypercar Season 2 race on "The Ring". In today's blog I'll review this race, which was quite interesting.

Quali

The first Hypercar race in the season had a sprint quali, which meant teams and drivers got points for the quali. Unlike in F1 and GT, sprint qualis lasted only 10% of the race distance as opposed to 20% in other series, so the quali lasted 7 laps.

It started with a decent battle between Pagani Corse and GMA Racing on the first lap, however I, the race host, disconnected at the end of lap 1, which caused the quali to be redone. During the first laps, the battle between GMA and Pagani was on, with both cars getting close to each other really often. The battle was won by Pagani Corse, who got pole position, with GMA coming 2nd. Mazda Racing was doing a decent job, getting 3rd. However for the AMR Hypercar team things didn't go well - the car was lapped on lap 4 and the driver (Bugqtt1) addmited that he forgot the course. He went on to finish quali dead last.

The Race

Before the race started, we had some trolling moments from quacksinoodle, who pretended to be the safety car. After the race had started, the battle between Pagani and GMA was on once again. On the opening laps they were kinda close to each other, however Pagani was building a decent gap. The gap was lost on lap 6, where Sot_85, who was driving the Pagani messed up and was overtaken by AlexTheBestWWE of GMA.

The GMA was leading until lap 9, where it messed up and was overtaken by Pagani. During lap 10, Bugqtt1 told that one of GMA's drivers, sadboi5345 (aka Smoke) was driving in Aston (AMR Racing) because the team lacked drivers. He was allowed to drive for Aston, but only for this race. Aston at the moment was dead last and didn't seem like it was doing great.

Meanwhile, Sot in the Pagani was building a big gap (about 15 seconds) as he was doing a near-flawless drive while Alex in the GMA was making some mistakes on the road.

At the end of lap 13, Aston was slowly catching up to the Mazda, which gave some hope to the team, however they both were lapped some time later by Pagani. Smoke passed the Mazda on lap 18, advancing Aston into P4. DeTomaso driven by Michal (holepeletenis) has stayed P3 during most of the race.

However, on lap 20, Sot has made a small mistake and fell off the mountain, however he had managed to continue leading the race.

Blaze (aka Alex) of GMA would pit on lap 25 and switch drivers with Syrz (aka dogemastertrain), the F3 S1 champion. After a series of mistakes from Blaze, GMA was about 20+ seconds behind the Pagani and had to do a flawless drive to get the lead back.

Lap 36 - Pagani of Sot switches drivers to AGGEL0S_8. At that point they had a gap of ~40 seconds over GMA. After Aston had switched their drivers (sadboi -> EGGNOFF232) they were getting closer to P3 of DeTomaso. Egg was an experienced driver, so the team had hopes for a podium finish. They unfortunately fell off the mountain on lap 45, but were still on the battle for P3 with DeTomaso

On lap 54 Aston has managed the (almost) impossible - thanks to Egg they've got past the DeTomaso, advancing them to P3.

During the closing laps of the race, GMA was slowly catching up to Pagani, however they still had an about 40 second gap to gain. Not really much happened on these laps apart from some teams getting verbal warnings for corner cutting.

After 80 minutes of racing, Pagani has (mostly) cruised their way into victory, with a big gap over the GMA, who managed to get 2nd place. Aston after a tough beggining has managed to get P3, with DeTomaso getting P4 after a solid drive. Mazda Racing unfortunately had finished dead last, even though it looked solid in the quali. Lio said that he had messed up really hard.

FINAL RESULTS:

1. Pagani Corse

2. GMA Racing

3. Aston Martin Racing Hypercar

4. DeTomaso Racing

5. Mazda Racing

Not the most interesting race, but for the first race of the season it was alright. The comeback from the Aston would be the most memorable thing from last Saturday's season opener. Hypercar will come back on 13th May on Twisty Towers, a city track made by TheMagnificentMouse (aka MrMouse). See you there!