October 17-18, Hockenheim (D)

FRIDAY 17TH OCTOBER SAW LOTUS CUP EUROPE RETURN TO THE INFAMOUS HOCKENHEIM RING, GERMANY, FOR THE SEASON FINALE.

The 100 Mile Race

With Thierry Verhiest wrapping up the regularity championship at Monza last time, only the prestigious 100 Mile Race was too be decided. Five 2-Elevens and four Exige Cups entered for the final round. The weekend started in unfortunate circumstances with a heavy crash for Thierry Verhiest. This sidelined Thierry from the rest of the race weekend.

Qualifying began Friday evening at 1630 hours in bright, dry conditions. Oliver Cunat # 213 managed only did seven laps with some electrical problem and Patrick Goblet # 206 made contact with #97 Porsche 997 GT3 Cup. The Porsche owner later apologised to Patrick for ‘clipping’ him and forcing him into the gravel.

In Class 1, Christophe Lisandre # 204 in his 2-Eleven grabbed pole with a 1:38.274 lap, second was Bob Montgomery # 202, closely followed by Patrick Goblet # 206. In Class 2, Oliver Cunat took pole with a 1:42.903 on his seventh lap but retired on the next lap. John Rasse and his brother Greg took second and third position and Yves Cooreman grabbed fourth.

In the blistering hot weather on Saturday evening saw first free practise of the 100 Mile race, entertaining four nationalities. Christophe Lisandre led from the off and never put a foot. John Rasse led Greg at the start, with Bob, Guillaume Schulz and Patrick all mixing it together. 

John and Greg had a great battle!  Greg overtook John on lap 3, with some confusion in traffic meaning that Greg jumped both John and the Porsche 911 # 18!  The same Porsche also hit Greg Rasse, so they continued the batte for a period.

John asserted himself just a lap later however and started to pull out a gap to his brother; meanwhile Guillaume had overtaken Bob who was being followed quite closely by both Patrick and Cooreman. In terms of the class battles, Bob drove a really solid stint to keep Patrick behind him - driving a slightly longer stint that anticipated to keep up that gap. 

In Class 2, Greg maintained a twenty second gap back to John before the mandatory stops, with Guillaume dropping back as the race progressed. Meanwhile, Christophe Lisandre was out in front by 45 seconds. With the pit window open at 30 minutes, first in was Yves Cooreman, then Bob Montgomery to change over to Brian Cullen. Bob had a long in lap and it materialised that he visited the gravel in the stadium section.  A lap later Christophe Lisandre and Patrick Goblet.

Last to pit was John Rasse, a long time after everyone else. This provided him with a clear track to post some very consistently quick lap times. This was of huge benefit since this weekends race was on the ‘short’ circuit and therefore most people encountered traffic more often. The delay to John Rasse’s pit stop provided the perfect clear track.

The race finished with Christophe  Lisandre taking victory in Class 1 and 16th out of 32 entries in the race. Second place was Bob Montgomery and third was Patrick Goblet. In Class 2 John Rasse took the victory comfortably, followed by his brother Greg. Guillaume Schulz and Yves Cooreman took fourth and fifth respectively.

The Class 1 podium:

Place	Name	Points
1	Christophe Lisandre	30
2	Robert Montgomery	24
3	Patrick Goblet	20

The Class 2 podium:

Place	Name	Points
1	John Rasse	30
2	Gregory Rasse	24
3	Yves Cooremann	20

Rankings