Ahead of today’s season finale, we take a look back on the previous race at the Red Bull Ring.

After the sixth round of the championship in Silverstone, Nico Barclay overtook Chris Shepherd in the Drivers’ Standings and was in third place, one position ahead of his teammate. STAX Racing was still leading Teams’ Championship with 142 points, followed by Edonis Engineering (130 points) and ACR Zakspeed (116 points.)

Unfortunately, both drivers had to serve a “Back of the Grid” penalty from Silverstone. Chris posted the second fastest lap while Nico would have started from P8 were it not for the penalties. Chris posted a comparison video, showing all the qualifying laps of the front-runners.

Due to the penalties, Chris started from 33rd position, followed by Nico in 34th place. To score valuable points, both drivers had a mountain to climb, but the pace in qualifying was promising.

Crucially, both drivers had a good start to the race, making up multiple positions in the opening laps. After five laps, Chris already was in P15 and thus in a points paying position. Nico was running 19th at this point. Shortly after, the Peruvian was able to pass Muru and Bell, followed by Gamil. After he passed Filippakos and Graham on Lap 8, he now was in the points aswell (P14). Two laps later, Nico gained another place after overtaking Epic Racing’s Caruso. Unfortunately, on lap 11, he overreved his engine under braking for Turn 2 and had to retire from the race. This marked his first DNF this season.

Chris meanwhile continued his pursuit through the field. As they were fighting each other, Brewster and Jundt ahead of him lost a lot of time and Chris was able to pass both of them on lap 9. Three laps later he gained P9 when Kumar momentarily lost control of his McLaren going into Turn 3. The next few laps, Chris closed the gap to Almeida and passed the VELES SimSport driver going into Turn 2 on lap 14. Two laps later he passed Ruben van den Hudding at the very same spot. By lap 20, Chris was running in P7. He headed for the pits on Lap 37, rejoining the race in P10. By the time all the cars around him finished their pitstops, he gained yet another place. During the closing stage of the race, Arne Schoonvliet caught up to Chris and passed him on lap 43, which meant that Chris finished the race in P7. After the race, Yuri Kasdorp was handed a 20 seconds time penalty and Chris was classified in 6th position overall, which meant that he gained 27 positions in the race!

Both ACR Zakspeed and STAX Racing are entering today’s season finale at Spa-Francorchamps with 152 points each. As Edonis Engineering is leading the Teams’ Championship with 159 points, an exciting race for the Championship is on the cards. Edonis Engineering’s Arne Schoonvliet won’t attend the race, meaning Risto Kappet already won the Drivers’ Championship. Chris Shepherd is fourth in the standings, followed by his teammate Nico Barclay in fifth.

You can watch the Belgian round here from 19:00 UTC. Below you can find the broadcast and the results of the Austrian round.

Broadcast

Results