Forzday Racing League: Race of United Arab Emirates

It was a clean start for the Race of United Arab Emirates as Andrew Steppat starts strong in Heat 1

The drivers stepped off their yachts and straight into the garage area for the Race of United Arab Emirates this weekend at Yas Marina. The second stop in the FRL’s WTCC series would end up providing even less clarity about who would be the dominant driver as the season moved forward.

Heat 1 began well for our top qualifier Andrew Steppat, from pole, he would set the top lap on the night and looked to widen the gap on the field. Travis Billingsley had trouble on lap 1 as he would lose grip in the #18 Volvo and parked the nose in the wall around Turn 17. He would be forced to wait on the field of 11 other cars to clear his position before limping back to the pits for an early stop. Ethan Maestri got a great start and settled into third position but was hotly pursued by Paul Maestri and Daniel Fleischmann. These three would run within 3 seconds of each other for the duration of the race. Paul made ground on his brother and was able to cleanly pass him in Turn 11. The two would run nose-to-tail in P2 &3 for the rest of the race. Ethan would close on the #86 bumper on several laps but just couldn’t wedge the door wide enough to pass. Around the halfway mark of the heat, trouble developed for Andrew Steppat and would knock him out of the race. Sensing the opportunity from the leaders misfortune, the whole field pressed hard for a best finish. At the checkered flag, Paul Maestri would cash-in and showed a return to form by grabbing his first Heat 1 in Season 5. Following a half second back would be Ethan Maestri with a P2 finish and Daniel Fleischmann, making his first start in the WTCC series, would post a solid P3 finish. Travis would fight hard, and despite continued adversity from a damaged car, would post a P6 finish right behind Allen Ruff in P5 and Drew Dilbeck in P4.

The start of Heat 2 would create even more chaos for the series

Heat 2 would see the reversed grid and immediately there was trouble for the Henderson brothers as both their cars would fail to make the start due to connection problems. Andrew Steppat would line up in P1 and would dominate this heat from flag to flag. Travis, chomping at the bit after a disappointing opening heat, would not be left behind again and quickly secured a P2 position that he would hold through to the checkered flag. Daniel Fleischmann would advance from a P8 start to secure P3 in the early stages and rode out the rest of the race in the top 3. Paul Maestri would stumble several times in this heat and looked to be giving up a win to his brother when Ethan suffered connection issues that caused the #85 RZM Audi to retire from the race as well. Paul would take his S3 and march up to P4, securing the victory and the 25 points for the night.

Tony Tyree had a rough start to the night, but would find redemption in Heat 2, he brought his #47 BMW home in the top 5. This secured an 8th place finish for him. His points, combined with Travis Billingsley’s P3 overall, netted Apex Racing top points on the night with 21 added to an already sizable team points lead. Drew Dilbeck was the leading RBR driver for this event, the only driver from the team to score points for the night. He would finish good enough to take P4 overall. RZM’s Allen Ruff looked to bounce back from a poor start to the season at Bathurst and did so nicely. He would finish P5 overall for the night, and was the top scoring driver for Razorback Motorsport.

The rookie battle cooled a bit as Matthew Smith suffered some pretty serious setbacks in both heats and failed to close the gap to Nicholas Hargrove. Nicholas didn’t run at the front, but kept the #5 Toyota’s nose clean and finished P9, one spot ahead of Matthew. As mentioned, Tom and Owen Henderson rounded out the field in P11 & 12 and didn’t net any points for the event.

The series heads over the Atlantic and south of the equator for the Race of Brazil in Rio de Janiero on October 9th.