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A foggy Twin Ring Motegi played host to the fifth and penultimate round of the IVRA Endurance Series today, with our #256 car once again taking to the grid in the highly competitive GT3 class.
Unlike the similarly named GT3 Pro class, our driver lineup must include Sapphire rated drivers who drive at least 40% of the race. For this round Tim fulfilled that Sapphire requirement and Jason returned to the endurance car for the first time since a 2nd place in Daytona earlier in the year.
After nearly 400 laps of practise and setup work in the runup to the event, the drivers were fairly confident that they'd manage to work around some of the recent issues found in the iRacing version of their Mercedes AMG GT3 car. The car was, however, completely set up for the race and so neither were surprised when they ended up right in the middle of the pack by qualifying 7th.
A hectic race start saw Tim move straight up the order to 4th in the early laps, settling into a strong first stint that was cut short by a safety car. While in hindsight it might have been better to stay out, the team decided to mirror what most other cars were doing and pit – also electing to swap driver to Jason to see if any extra positions could be made.
Jason's first double stint went well, moving the car up to 2nd, although not without issue. A couple of spins and light contacts throughout the stints meant that the car couldn't really cement that 2nd place, nor make any kind of dent in the incredible pace shown by the Maniti team.
From there the drivers settled into their rhythm, saving fuel where possible and taking their car longer into each stint to pull a buffer. This paid off well, creating a decent gap to 3rd place before an unfortunate incident with a GT3 Pro car resulted in a 20s stop and go penalty and dropped us out of contention for 2nd. Tim then did a solid job of bringing the car home to the second podium of the season for this car – a car which missed the first round and has been on a recovery mission in the season standings ever since.
The last round is coming up in April at the magnificent Fuji International Speedway, and the team will of course hope for a strong result to finish out the season.
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