Qualifying

James Scott would punch in a 1:29:582 around the halfway mark in the session. This would be good enough for pole and James took the opportunity from here to attempt to assist the Speedcafe Lobs Esports squad with their remaining laps.

That now means the team have taken all 3 pole positions from the season thus far, with Scott taking two and Jarrad Filsell the other.

Ethan Grigg-Gault would also launch in a phenomenal time to start off the outside of the front row. This would be critical in setting up his night, thus far Ethan’s 2024 season has been more unlucky than most, and required a strong showing to get his aspirations back on track.

Dylan Rudd and Andrew Gilliam would also star in qualifying to make up the second row of the grid. With a championship title to think about, Rudd's qualifying would have been worth a sigh of relief after disastrous campaigns at the Austrian circuit in both ‘22 and ‘23.

Ric Kuznetsov would be 5th and also setup a strong race with solid qualifying pace.

Jarrad Filsell would fail to show the pace he is capable of in qualifying and start out of 17th, right in front of fellow Speedcafe Lobs Esports driver Luke Rosella who hadn’t finished a race thus far in 2024.

Failing to get a valid lap time and starting from the rear of the field would create problems for both Sebastian Flock and Thomas Freeman.

Race

Lights out and the run to turn one would see strong starts from both drivers on the front row.

James Scott would settle into the lead, and Ethan Grigg-Gault would be keen to follow with a view to setting up the back half of the race.

Dylan Rudd would fight vigorously to hang onto third at the first turn with a fast-starting Andrew Gilliam taking a dive for the spot.

Deeper in the pack our championship leader Robert Gibbs would get tagged by the #951 entry of Shawn Mcnamara and save the car, albeit losing 4 or 5 spots in the process.

If you thought turn one was clean, turn three never is and the Red Bull Ring delivered.

Two cars would end up spun with Luke Rosella triggering contact into the rear of Zach Rattray-White, sending Rattray-White around and to the rear of the field. Damien Johnstone would also get turned and at the back.

From here 3 distinct trains of cars formed with Scott and Grigg-Gault clear at the front. Andrew Gilliam would enter a dogfight with Dylan Rudd and cause them to lose the tow of the front two. This pack would run from 3rd down to 15th.

The next pack would be split with fighting for 16th and run back to the mid 20’s. A third pack would form as well.

From around lap 7 the race would start to settle down as targets would turn to a little bit of saving of the machinery, tire and fuel. Marcello Rivera would make a move to settle into 4th spot for the laps through to the first stops, making his way past Andrew Gilliam.

A group of drivers would try the undercut starting on lap 16, but pace really hadn’t fallen off enough for there to be much time gain. What it would do is break up the packs that had formed.

Of the lead pack it would be Gilliam who would be the first to have a crack at the alternate strategy and severely underfill the car at the first stop to try and run light and quick for both the remaining stints.

Overall James Scott across the course of the race was just about untouchable. If you closely inspected his race there would be minor lockups and slight misses of apexes. However, that was all masked by a driver in supreme control of his machinery. How the field will find a way to match both Scott and teammate Jarrad Filsell will be the key question moving into Jerez in a few weeks time.

Ethan Grigg-Gault would end up with driver of the day for his first finish with a clean car of the season. Pace wise he would have known he was capable of such a finish thus far, but to see him drive a speedy and smart race was the strong return to form for the ERT driver who has been shaking up the world of Hyundai Excels of late.

Jarrad Filsell has again shown an ability to rebound from a poor qualifying performance. If we see a return to the execution of his pole lap from Phillip Island there is every chance he might become the number one driver over at Speedcafe Lobs Esports, particularly when Scott and Filsell are just two points apart in the championship standings.

Dylan Rudd would drop off in terms of pace late, and lose a small amount of ground to Ric Kuznetsov. These two drivers will continue to keep a close eye on each other as they moved to first and second in the championship, with a margin of 8 points favouring Rudd at this juncture.

Championship Standings

Keep an eye on the Madison Down, Brady Meyers, James Scott, and Jarrad Filsell battle for championship standings. TTR’s Down and Meyers sit tied on 400 points with the Speedcafe Lobs cars only just over 20 points further back.

With a quarter of the season done the margin from these 4 to the top of the standings has now closed.

Either Kuznetsov or Rudd are capable of winning the championship, but from here on out I want to see them beating their rivals at least one race from three to be in contention.

The Spanish Hills of Jerez play host to the next round. It's a circuit that the supercars haven’t done a large amount of racing at. This means a larger investment in practice and tuning time from the teams and could lead to an overall shakeup in the pecking order.

Could this be the kind of track that fires off another twist in the tail of Championship Glory?