after frustrating qualifying
• Spike achieves eleventh fastest lap time in Race 2 on Sunday • Close racing in the Dutch Dunes for the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany• Spike remains first in Rookie Standings
This past weekend saw the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany head to the Zandvoort race track in Holland on the outskirts of Amsterdam. This traditional style race track on the sand dunes that border the North Sea is a very undulating track with many sweeping high speed corners.
The race weekend started with a one-hour Free Practice session on Fridayafternoon, but it was not the start desired by the young Australian racing driver as he set the 18th fastest time of 1:43.468 with a gap of over 2.1 seconds to the fastest lap set by Philipp Eng. After the practice session, the MRS-Team mechanics discovered that Spike’s car had a broken damper in the front left suspension.
The team did a great job to get everything fixed and Spike’s car was ready for qualifying on Saturday morning. However, the disappointing weekend continued as Spike had a frustrating qualifying session made more difficult by traffic and yellow flags when his tyres were at their best. Spikes fastest and second fastest lap times in qualifying meant he had to start both races in 18th position. His fastest lap in qualifying was almost 0.7 seconds (1:42.798) quicker than his best time in Free Practice on Friday, but still over two seconds behind the Pole-Sitter, Philipp Eng (1:40.538) who dominated the weekend.
Race 1 over 14 laps took place in fine weather on Saturday afternoon. Spike started in 18th position and finished in a disappointing 16th position, having gained two places due to an accident just in front of him. Zandvoort is a very difficult track to overtake on unless a driver makes a mistake, hence races tend to be very close but somewhat processional. “My disappointing result was pretty much due by my poor qualifying session. It was an incredibly tough race as it is very difficult to pass on this track.”
On Sunday morning, Race 2 (over 19 laps) took place in dry conditions at the beachside race track. Spike again started the race in 18th position, but this time he had a much better race. It took him a few laps to pass his MRS team mate Elia Erhart, but once Spike got past he had a five second gap to make up to catch Nicklas Kentenich. With a clear track ahead of him, Spike drove well putting in several very good lap times in a row and was able to close the gap to Kentenich with about five laps remaining in the race.
Unfortunately, as he caught up to Kentenich there was a race incident that brought out the Safety Car, preventing Spike from an opportunity to try to overtake Kentenich. The race resumed with two laps to go and Spike was able to improve by one position to finish in 15th place due to the late retirement of Daniel Cammish. The highlight of the weekend was in race 2 when Spike set the 11th fastest lap time of the race (out of 22 competitors) and only 0.01 seconds off his team mate Christian Englehart’s fastest lap time. Philipp Eng took two poles, won both races and leads the championship. Spike continues to lead the Rookie Championship.
“It was a tough weekend mainly due to qualifying”, said Spike. “I am really happy with how I drove in race 2. Once I had a clear track I was over 0.5 seconds per lap quicker than the cars just in front of me. I was driving well and I believe that I could have gained a couple more positions had the Safety Car not come out with five laps to go in the race.” The next race is in the Porsche Supercup at the Hungaroring in Budapest at the end of July.
