Richie Stanaway completed his first round of the Logitech G Pro Invitational Supercar Series at Red Bull Ring and immediately hit it off with SSR’s Tom Freer. Stanaway showed glimpses of speed throughout the night, appearing near the top of the time sheets throughout practice, as did Freer. But it was when the two found each other on track that sparks began to fly.
After the second safety car restart, Freer got shuffled back into Stanaways clutches and it wasn’t long before the fun kicked off. Stanaway passed Freer to move close to the top 10, a few laps later Freer making a move on Hamstead, who in turn made a move on Stanaway which escorted Stanaway off the circuit. Stanaway’s spotter immediately reported the move to race control but it was deemed play on. Richie decided to take himself out of the battle and opted for an early pit stop, an undercut he thought would move him away from that pack.
A few laps later, Freer would pit, and when he took to the track again Freer on the fresh rubber cruised up to the back of Stanaway and put a move on at turn 4, but this is where the gloves came off. Not content to sit behind, the Simblacks machine immediately tried to pass into the second last corner, pushing Freer into a slowdown. Freer incensed by the contact retained position and made a double block move down the front straight to hamper the run of Richie, both of them coming in way too hot at turn 1 and allowing Hobson to slice through.
Aggravation levels rising as Simblacks were reporting Freer, and Freer reporting Stanaway. Eventually the final passing manouver was at turn 3 by Stanaway, escorting Freer wide and giving him no room to fight back. The SSR machine had no more tyres left as the pack behind had now caught up, shuffling Freer down to 16th, whilst Stanaway will be ruing missing out on a maiden top 10, coming come in 11th.
It was a bruising battle, the gloves were off. Tune in on July 13th to see these two resume the fight!
