"Super Sub" brings joy after Race 1 dismay

Idos Motorsport made their return to the 2018 GPVWC Formula Challenge grid at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium in which the team would look to impress, once again, after their recent split from the Schubert Motorsports team, now run by Markus Broch.

The original line up of Cameron Rodger and Michal Galka would be set to run until a realisation of Galka's missing license points would mean he would have tp sit out three rounds via consecutive race bans. The team was then pitted in a race against time to find a replacement for the Belgian, Italian and Sinagporean rounds of the championship. The replacement was found within half a day and Tom Lombaerts was the selected individual who would take to the prestigious circuit for his debut.

Qualifying:

Qualifying was standard procedure for the team. P21 and P22 with their lap times however would be promoted up the field after the penalties from Hungary were applied even though this would still mean the focus would be damage limitation.

Race 1:

The lights went out to unleash the chaos that would shortly ensue.. Caused, rather dissapointingly, by Rodger of whom misjudged his space and caused a large accident behind him down the Kemmel straight. This caused him to retire and for tom to climb up multiple palces in the process. With the race settling down slightly it meant that Tom could focus on climbing up any extra places he needed to of which would secure the team more vital points in their recovery from the dissapointing round last time out at the Hungaroring.

In the end Tom managed to finish P12 climbing up a massive 10 places from his grid slot landing him reverse grid P4 for the second race of the day.

Race 2:

As the field gridded up and team boss Alex Skinner sat on the pit wall biting their teeth. The field got underway for the second race of the day in which led to a surprisingly clean La Source. However all that would change as going up Eau Rouge one of the leaders made a mistake and went flying off the circuit and into the barrier. This then led to others having the same issue with almost half of the field being involved in some way with some cars having to retire due to it. Lombaerts, however, managed to avoid the carnage and climb up to P3 as he then worked on chasing down P2 of whom he managed to pass a couple of laps later.

From there on in the race was a quiet one for the team as Tom sat just under six seconds behind leader Matthew Beavis with the final spot on the podium being fought for a few seconds back.

By the end of the race as the chequered flag dropped the team celebrated as Lombaerts came home to score Idos' second GPVWC Formula Challenge of the year making up for the horriffic World GT event at spa a couple of months prior.

Alex Skinner (Team Boss): "Once again another circuit repays us for previous misfortune with a glorious result in some fashion. Spa has been another success for this team in a race where we only found our reserve driver less than 24 hours prior to official practice. I can't extend my thanks enough to Tom [Lombaerts] and Cameron [Rodger] alongside Michal [Galka] (of whom, unfortunately, couldn't be present today due to his three race ban) who put in substantial amounts of work into the setup and practice since the end of the Hungarian round of the championship.

Obviously some races go better than others and the accident caused by Cameron in Race 1 is something truly unacceptable but these things happen and i know Cameron is very regretful of that mistake. The Disciplinary Committee will make their own call on the harshness of the penalty and from there on we will see what we can do come Monza in two weeks time.

Overall i'm looking forward to seeing how well Tom can do at Monza and Singapore and from there on in we can evaluate who we take on into the final rounds of the season dependant on who feels more confident going in."

Cameron Rodger (Driver #80):

" After a dreadful race in Hungary i was looking foward to Spa, as i have already won here in FSR recently. The pace wasn't quite there, however i still felt somewhat confident. Qualifying wasn't anything special meaning i was starting from P18. Sadly on lap 1 i misjudged a gap, causing a crash so my race was over due to damage. Going into Race 2 i was at the back due to DNF in Race 1. I got a good start and almost avoided a big crash but got caught up a bit, I managed to escape in the top15 and with others pitting i ended in p10, then another car DNF so i ended in P9. so overall a decent result for the team. " Tom Lombaerts (Reverse #90):

"Going into the race i wasn't expecting much of a good result but i was just looking to have fun in the pack. I was a little disappointed qualifying 22nd as i could have gone a few tenths faster. In race 1 i managed to avoid a big incident wich put me 15th. I climbed up some more when other made mistakes. Later on in the race i hit the wall in No name twice, wich caused suspension damage. This decreased my pace and i got overtaken again, but i managed to still finish a nice P12."

"In race 2 i started 4th. In the first lap at the top of raidillon the car in front spun out wich caused a massive crash behind me. In lap 3 i took P2 after a failed attempt at the bus stop the lap before. I then pulled away from the cars behind and hoped to catch the leader. After a few laps of pushing i decided that i was not going to catch him and i was burning through my tires. I then slowed down a bit and brought it home in P2. Great result that i really didn't expect, however the massive incident in lap 1 certainly played a role in this. I look forward to the next race in Monza."

With the next round being the Italian Grand Prix from the "Temple of Speed" otherwise known as Monza. The team are quietly confident they can perform well. However catch us NEXT WEEK for the first round of the GPVWC International Touring Cup from Tor Poznan in which the soon to be confirmed Idos Motorsport line up will be competing in Division One of the championship in what is going to be a supremely tightly contested championship.

Once again you can catch up with the action from the GPVWC Formula Challenge races from Spa on the official broadcast hosted by SimNews.TV.