ADM Raceway Circuit, August 3-4, 2019. GTE Racing Team sent two race cars in S1600 and Super Production classes to ADM Raceway, abundant in lots of slow and tricky turns.
The main pilot of the team, Philipp Tuponosov, drove LADA Granta FL S1600, specially prepared by Lada Sport for the S1600 class, Vasily Vladykin after the failures of past stages, tried himself again at the wheel of the Mazda 3, specially prepared for the Super Production class.
ADM Raceway is one of the top-ranked long-living Russian circuits. Located at a former airfield, ADM Raceway, also known as Myachkovo, hosted its first competition in 2002 and has already undergone two major renovations, the last of which took place in 2018, bringing the track the prestigious FIA Grade 4 license and a completely new infrastructure for drivers and fans. The circuit was slightly shortened after the last renovation to 3,240 meters with 14 corners and a maximum width of 15 meters.
According to the results of the S1600 class qualification, which took place on Friday, Philipp Tuponosov took 10th place on the starting grid of Saturday's race.
Unfortunately, three cars had to start the race from the pit lane, including Philipp’s one and both drivers of the Lada Sport Rosneft team, because of the RAF decision on the start day. The decision was purely technical and was connected with the requirement to install a new 31.5 mm restrictor on the engines of LADA Granta FL S1600. Instead of meeting this requirement, Lada Sport decided to replace the engines on all its cars with last year’s specification versions, which led to the need to start from the pit lane.
After the start from the pit lane, Philipp immediately chased after the peloton, managing to catch up with the main group of pilots in the middle of the first lap, and by the end of the first lap, Philipp performed three overtakes. Despite the nature of the track, which is not very conducive to overtaking, a close fight with frequent contacts between the competitors' cars continued after the first lap and ended only with the finish flag. Three pilots of LADA Granta FL S1600 turned out to be the main disturbers, including Philipp. On lap 5 after a beautiful breakthrough to the 9th place with the start from the pit lane, Philipp caught up with Ilya Gorbatsky and performed a spectacular attack in the hairpin — one of the slowest places of ADM Raceway. Ilya wasn't going to give up, but instead of trying to win back the lost position in the next corners, the driver of a VW Polo hit the side of the LADA Granta FL S1600 of the GTE Racing Team main pilot. As a result of this collision, Philipp was forced to withdraw and get out of the overturned race car.
Due to an offensive withdrawal on Saturday, Philipp had to start Sunday's race from the 11th position. The GTE Racing Team main pilot took the start smoothly, keeping 11th place by the second corner. The tight fight in the first lap continued, reaching its climax in the hairpin where Philipp failed to escape a collision with the slow car of Sergey Schegolev and made a side collision, but without serious consequences for his equipment. By lap five, Philipp was 10th, but unfortunately, the GTE Racing Team driver had no further pace to break through. In the second half of the race, as a result of various incidents, a safety car came onto the track twice and Philipp was able to get back into the battle. After winning two more positions back, Philipp saw the checkered flag in 8th place. Unfortunately, after the finish of the race, the stewards once again considered the incident in the first lap and decided to add 30 seconds to Philipp's time, having found the GTE Racing Team pilot guilty of the collision, which changed Philipp's final position in Sunday's race to the 11th.
After the first five stages, Philipp is 8th in the S1600 class individual classification with 66 points.
In the Super Production class, GTE Racing Team pilot Vasily Vladykin finished the qualification in 8th place. Immediately after the start in the first corner, Roman Golikov, the driver of the Junior Touring Lite class, rammed several rivals due to brakes failure and created real chaos on the track. Vasily was able to react perfectly and escaped collision with wreckage and broken cars, but he had to leave the track and use an extremely slow auxiliary road. After returning to the track, Vasily appeared in the middle of the peloton of the Touring Lite class and waited for the end of the safety car regime to get back into the battle. The rest of the race was quite calm for Vasily until he was forced to retire on lap 11th due to the clutch failure.
Vasily started Sunday's race in 9th place. GTE Racing Team pilot was able to start well and avoid a crash in the first lap, so by the end of the lap he gained three positions. Vasily continued at a good pace and made no mistakes, but three laps before the finish, in the first corner, Vasily received a rather strong hit from Alexander Garmash's VW Scirocco and was forced to leave the track again and slowly return back. Vasily saw the finish flag in the 5th place, which after the finish of the race turned into the 4th, as the stewards found Alexander Garmash guilty of collision with Vasily and added penalty seconds to Alexander's time.
After the first five stages, Vasily is 10th in the Super Production class individual classification with 21 points.
The sixth stage of the 2019 SMP RCRS Championship will be held on August 17-18 at Moscow Raceway.