Rain dominated the fourth round of the 2018 Formula Challenge series. Here is our race report.

After the third round of the season, STAX Racing was second in the Teams’ Championship with 138 points, behind Red Arrow Racing (147 points) and in front of Royal Blue Racing (74). Adrian Campfield dropped to fourth in the Drivers’ Championship while Chris Shepherd was in second place.

The fourth round of the championship was held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Just as the qualifying started, it began to rain heavily. Adrian Campfield tried to set a lap on the slick tyres as fast as possible, but it was too wet already and he struggled for grip. In hindsight, going out with Intermediate tyres would have been the better choice, seeing as conditions worsened all through the session and the drivers who got a lap in on Inters started from the front of the grid. Chris Shepherd had a “Back of the Grid” penalty from last race.

Race 1: Adrian started the race from 21st position.  At Turn 1, Browning and Foster ahead of him made contact. As a result, Foster went onto the Kerb and spun in front of Adrian. Both Adrian and Foster ended up in the gravel trap and had to let the whole field pass as a result. Adrian rejoined the race in 30th place, but quickly caught the backend of the field and started to regain positions. On lap eight, he passed Chris and Leonov on the Start-Finish-Straight, gaining P14 in the process. Since a dry line was starting to form, other drivers started to head into the pits for Inters or even Slicks at that time, but immediately regretted that decision. More than once, they spun exiting their pit box. Adrian decided to stay out on track, but started to struggle with high tyre wear. As a result, Chris was able to pass him on Lap 11. Later in the race, he also lost two positions to Galka and Hippel, which meant he finished the first race in P12.

As previously mentioned, Chris had to serve a “Back of the Grid” penalty for the start. He decided to be very cautious at the start, preferring loosing a position or two to being crashed out of the race. This tactic paid off and he started to gain a lot of positions in the first few laps. After three laps, he was in P22. However, it soon became apparent that Chris was running with a wing setting that was too high. At the end of the long start-finish straight, his top speed was up to 10 km/h lower than that of the guys ahead of him, making passing them difficult. In the end, Chris finished the first race in P9, having lost P8 on the last lap to Galka.

Race 2: It rained a bit less during the warmup for Race 2, so we decided to gamble on the tyre choice. Adrian started the race on Intermediate tyres from P12. He was extra cautious on the first lap, but despite this he unfortunately became a victim of a multi-car pile-up in Turn 8. He finished the first lap in P14, albeit with heavy damage. Furthermore, it became clear that it was still too wet for Inters. On Lap 5, Adrian touched the Kerb in T9, resulting in a snap-oversteer moment that sent him towards the tyre wall, ending his race prematurely.

Chris started the race from P3 behind Graham and Hippel. After making slight contact with Galka in Turn 2, Chris went wide and lost a couple of positions. On Lap 3, he passed Early and started to close the gap to Hippel. Chris was right under Hippel’s gearbox by Lap 8, however he again had a lower top speed compared to his competitors, making passing extra difficult. After a spectacular battle for position, Chris passed the TR Motorsports driver and started to catch up to Jundt and Galka, who were battling for P2 ahead of him. Shortly after, Jundt passed the Idos Motorsport drive. Chris, too, was very close to Galka, but a lack of top speed made it difficult to pass the Polish driver. With the race coming to an end, Chris had only one more chance to get on the podium: He stayed in Galka’s slipstream on the long start-finish straight and went on the outside for Turn 1, braking early. Galka braked too late and ran wide, loosing momentum, which made it possible for Chris to pass him on the inside and subsequently finishing the race in P3.

It is fair to say that this wasn’t our best round. We made some mistakes, both on the setup and with the tyre choices. Even worse, Red Arrow Racing had a very succesful round, being on the podium four times in two races!

After the fourth round of the season, STAX Racing is still second in the Teams’ Championship with 165 points, behind Red Arrow Racing (228 points) and in front of Royal Blue Racing (111). Adrian Campfield dropped two positions and is now sixth in the Drivers’ Championship while Chris Shepherd is still in second place.

The next round of the season, the prestigious Monaco GP, will be held on April 24th, 2018. As always, you can find the broadcast and the results tables of the last round below.

Broadcast

Results