Late Hypercar S2 R4 Review

After a boring round on Van Circuit, where Pagani mostly dominated many hoped that the next race would bring some competition to the leading team. The race would be done on Texasring Alt Layout in reverse, which according to testing was balanced for all cars. The race would also be the 2nd race in MCRO that used the Shootout quali format, which had worked OK during the last race.

Quali

Quali didn't start well, as the first team to appear, which was Mazda Racing, didn't come at all - all of the drivers couldn't join, including Lio. Then DeTomaso would have joined, however the team leader informed Mat that all of the drivers couldn't make it into the race. Next up was Aston, who actually appeared and did the quali. Then, it was time for GMA, who to a suprise, didn't appear at all - both Alex and Syrz couldn't join for (at the time) unknown reasons. When Pagani was supposed to appear for the quali, only 1 team had set a time, which was the new low for the hypercar races. The race was supposed to be delayed due to lack of teams racing, however when Pagani was doing quali, Lio from Mazda Racing has joined, making it 3 teams racing. Vark eventually did the quali and qualified 3rd. Aston qualified 2nd and Pagani (to noone's suprise) got pole.

Race

The race started surpisingly well for the Mazda, who had managed to stay in the lead for the first few laps. But it didn't take long for both Aston and Pagani to battle Mazda, with Pagani eventually taking the lead really quickly. Mazda then started falling behind the Aston in P2. With Pagani somehow managing to make an 8 second gap on lap 10, many people assumed that it'd be an another Pagani domination from start to finish. But on lap 12, Pagani has changed drivers (Sot -> Agg), causing Aston to lead for a while - unfortunetaly a lap later the car probably crashed and Pagani took the lead back from them.

Aston started chasing the Pagani and they were really close - eventually, on lap 21 Egg from Aston finally overtook the Pagani, but lost the lead pretty quickly, as he probably crashed on lap 24. Agg then managed to make a 5 second gap pretty quickly, but Egg had catched up to him pretty quickly and now was about a second behind on lap 29. The battle intensified, as on lap 31 Aston overtook the Pagani, who had possibly crashed, and took the lead again. Egg now had a 7 second lead on lap 33. Hopes for Aston winning were getting bigger than ever now, but not for long as Pagani started catching up fast. And a few laps later, Pagani had dropped their pace a bit again, causing Aston to lead by few seconds. Pagani now was around 16 seconds behind. In meantime, the Mazda was lapped.

It looked like a win for Aston, but on lap 53 we have been informed that Aston has crashed and that the gap had decreased to just 6 seconds. On lap 56 Pagani was just 3 seconds behind. The gap was shrinking lap by lap, and it seemed like the possibilities for Aston to win were now getting worse. And on lap 60, Pagani claimed the lead again and continued to create a gap. Meanwhile, the Mazda was getting lapped again.

What seemed like the best race of the season had changed into a Pagani domination, with them creating a gap big enough to lap the Aston in 2nd. On lap 90, Pagani was less than 10 seconds away from lapping their rival. It only took them 6 laps to lap them - crazy. The battle for the lead was now gone, as Egg couldn't decrease the gap and Mazda was over 3 laps behind the leader. And during the final 20 laps of the race, Aston was lapped again, after a driver change (Egg -> Bugatti). In meantime, Obli had jumped into the driver seat of the Pagani and was doing decent - it was infact his first hypercar appearence since Season 1. Also, Aston has switched drivers, with Dhen also appearing for the first time in hypercar.

The race came to a close, with Pagani crossing the line first with a 2 lap lead, Aston coming 2nd and Mazda coming 3rd, 4 laps behind.

This race had a decent battle at the beggining, but with Pagani's absolutely dominant comeback the race changed into a snooze-fest (according to some). If I could describe the race using only a few words I would say "the first few laps were good, rest was sh--". By the way, sorry for posting the article 8 days late, as I had not much motivation to do the article - to compensate that I will be posting 3 articles each day, starting from 15th June. No, they won't be any race reviews or Tuesday/Thursday Throwbacks, but it will be something to look out for. See you there.