Hypercar S2 R6 Review

In the previous Hypercar race, Pagani Corse won the Constructor's Championship with ease, winning every single race up until that moment. Both Agg and Sot were equal on points, meaning that the next race would change their championship situation. This Hypercar race would be hosted on a long track, The Nur River Run, after a streak of city circuits. Many people wanted GMA or Aston to finally break Pagani's winning streak. Would Pagani get their 6th win, making them the only team that won a race in the 2nd season of Hypercar?

Qualifying

For the first time since R2, all 5 teams showed up. Pagani's TL Vark decided to qualify for the team as this was his only chance to get his first pole position, Alex (BL4ZE) qualified for GMA, Egg for Valk, Michal for DeTomaso and Lio for Furai.

The 1 lap quali was go, both Vark and Alex got away well, and were neck and neck going into T1. Vark took the lead exiting T2 and held onto it until the next corner where he spun gifting P1 to GMA and P2 to the DeTomaso, Exiting city the Zonda took P2 and was chasing GMA who seemed to be a safe distance away. Not for long though as Alex clipped a wall while going over one of the bridges Vark snatched away the lead and drove to the finish to claim pole, followed by GMA in 2nd and DeTomaso in 3rd. Pagani's rival, Aston had disconnected and had to start from the back.

Race

3 2 1 and the season finale was on! Syrz in the GMA and Sot in the Pagani both got away well, Sot crashed on the opening lap granting the lead to Syrz followed by the Valkyrie of Egg followed by the P72 and then the Furai. Having dropped all the way down, the Pagani driver had a big job to do, GMA had their hopes high for if they won this race, they'd break Zonda's streak. Meanwhile Syrz led quite comfortably with Egg not far behind, occasionally making mistakes. Sot fought his way up and was soon right on the tail of Syrz. The duo were now in an intense battle. Gaining and losing on each other every other lap, snatching the lead one lap and losing it the next. This went on for a while until the GMA made an error which put the Zonda ahead by a comfortable 8 seconds. They were still constantly gaining and losing on each other. Egg on the other hand retired due to his car "sliding around", an issue which caught a lot of drivers off guard that day. At the other end of the string Mazda was really struggling, being last during most of the opening laps and DeTomaso was safe in P3 after Egg disconnecting, this would mean Michal would finish P7 in driver's championship with DeTomaso taking P4 in constructors. On lap 19, much to everyone's surprise and delight but to Pagani's horror, both Pagani drivers disconnected, leaving GMA and Syrz in the lead. Vark quicky rejoined the race later (in the Pagani) on the same lap, but now was P2. The Zonda went from an 8 second lead to about half a lap down on the race leader. Nothing interesting was going on between DeTomaso and Furai as they were quite far apart. The gap b/w Zonda and GMA was now not increasing or decreasing by much. A few laps later, Egg and 3 Pagani drivers joined. Taking into consideration that the race leader had disconnected from a comfortable lead and also after considering similar situations from pervious Hypercar races, a yellow flag was waved and the safety car was out. Zonda pit immediately and Sot was back driving it again. This raised some questions but nevertheless was followed. Lapped cars were set to unlap, but moments later, on lap 27 Mat disconnected.

The host disconnecting was an issue major enough to bring out a red flag, the race was now hosted by Vark. Majority of the teams had a lot to make of this situation. GMA swapped drivers (Syrz -> Alex), all lapped cars were effectively unlapped, Egg was back in the race. When the race resumed on lap 28, it started from the pit lane going by positions just before the red flag. Valk GMA and Zonda were all quite close, going into lap 29 all 3 of them were neck and neck, DeTomaso seemed to have lost pace and was now running in P5 while Furai was in P4. Lap 30 came and surprisingly Egg in the Valk was leading, but he lost his lead the next lap and dropped to P3. Zonda seized the lead and was in the lead for the rest of the race. By lap 42 DeTomaso pit twice and was doing painfully slow, there was a battle for P2 now between GMA and Valkyrie, an error from the GMA meant Valk subsequently took P2.

At lap 45 Zonda and Valk both completed their pits, with Zonda swapping drivers from Sot to Agg.

Interestingly enough, Valk was still in P2 after 2 pit stops. By lap 50 all teams had completed their pits.

From there on, cars were occasionally lapped, with P2 being over 60s behind P1 there was no expectations for a battle for the lead, but P3 was within 10s of P2 which kept everyone going.

Positions remained the same through the penultimate lap.

On the final lap Zonda weaved to a 6th in a row victory, claiming pole and winning every single race of Hypercar S2. There was some explosive action on the track as GMA tried to pass Valk and successfully did on the very last lap claiming P2. Furai and DeTomaso came home in P4 and P5 respectively.

It was an eventful race with a very interesting first half but the latter half was mostly uneventful with Zonda leading all the way until the finish.

This meant Agg and Sot who were leading the WDC were both tied in points having won the same number of races & having qualified on pole the same number of times.

AMR finished P2 in constructors with Egg P3 in WDC.

The season finale was a mix of events. It was however a happy ending for Pagani Corse who went home with their 2nd WCC and WDC.