No. 84 Porsche eighth in Mid-Ohio after fuel issues
A difficult season for Fischer Motorsport continues, as Saturday’s VSCA Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio marked the latest race where the team struggled with self-inflicted mistakes and technical issues.
After a wild race at Laguna Seca last month that was marred by several crashes and five caution periods, Fischer Motorsport was on its toes for another wild start to this race.
However, the first handful of laps were very civil and Paddy Schindler, who started the race in the No. 14 Dallara P217 maintained a position just outside the top-ten, in the P2 Prototype class.
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© 2022 Fischer Motorsport
Lap 7: Nelson Eberth in the No. 85 Porsche 911 GT3 R loses control in turn 13 and crashes into the barrier
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Jay Van Meppelen, in only his second career VSCA SportsCar Championship start, confirmed his strong performance from Laguna Seca with another solid start to the race, holding sixth position, settling into the race nicely.
Nelson Eberth struggled to put together the perfect lap in VSCA GRID Pole Qualifying and ended up starting from 22nd place on the grid, putting the No. 85 Porsche in the last third of the field.
The 28-year-old lost one position in the early stages of the race, dropping him to P23, but it wasn’t until lap seven, that things went really bad.
Coming out of the final turn 13, Eberth’s car started sliding into an oversteer and the Surheim, Germany native tried to save it, but ultimately went into the gravel on the start/finish straight and hit the barriers. The team was able to continue the race, but the front of the car was significantly damaged and was now third to last in P28.
“I don’t know what happened. I was focused on making no mistake, but then I got the bad oversteer in the final corner and couldn’t save it anymore. I’m very sorry for the team. I hate it for us, but somehow nothing really went right for me this weekend.”, Eberth commented.
On lap ten, just 16 minutes into the race, Paddy Schindler caught up with the No. 84 Porsche of Van Meppelen and lapped the team-mate’s car, as P2 Prototypes started to work their way through multi-class traffic for the first time on this exceptionally narrow track.
The race went sour for the No. 14 Dallara P217 team on lap 25 in a very strange incident involving multiple cars. The No. 2 Prototype of FR13DA Sports Group had just gone off the track in turn four, when the driver Fabian-Alexander Boller rejoined the track in turn five without regard for incoming traffic, causing a harsh collision with the No. 66 Porsche of vApex Racing and Schindler’s car.
The crash resulted in heavy damage of the Fischer Motorsport P2 Prototype and forced the team to bring Schindler into the pits for repairs. After holding ninth position on the lead lap just prior to the incident, this incident marked a huge set back for the team and after a 50-second pit stop, Schindler went back out on track. But the car still didn’t feel right and the Frankfurt, Germany native had to come in a second time for another 36-second repair stop.
After everything was said and done, the No. 14 Prototype was now two laps down from the leaders and saw its chance to compete for a good result slip away, as the race had yet to see its first full-course yellow.
The first and lone caution of the day came just before the halfway mark of the race and the No. 84 Porsche team took the opportunity to complete its driver swap. As Van Meppelen exited the car, Mayer swung behind the wheel of the Porsche 911 GT3 R and smoked the tires on his way back out to the track under yellow flag, holding now 14th position in GT3 class, as several other cars did not pit or had shorter pit stops without driver changes.
The No. 85 Porsche team followed en suite and also made its driver change under caution. Stephen Nobes now took over the steering wheel from Eberth and when the race restarted, Nobes was scored in 27th, one lap down but had a car that was mostly repaired by the pit crew under yellow.
The team was now hoping for another caution period, to get its lap back and to make it back to the lead lap. However, this wasn’t meant to be and thus, despite best efforts by the British racer, the team came home with a disappointing 16th place finish.
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© 2022 Fischer Motorsport
Lap 25: Paddy Schindler in the No. 14 Dallara P217 gets involved in a crash when the No. 2 P2 Prototype rejoins the track in turn five
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“Definitely disappointing. Absolutely not what we were gunning for today. I gave it everything I had, but we really needed another caution, after that crash and repair earlier in the race. But even then, we still got shunted by one of the P2 Prototypes late in the race, going into turn five, so it may not have mattered anyway.”, Nobes said, visibly disappointed.
For Mayer and the No. 84 Porsche team, for the most time the race looked perfect for them as they passed several cars for position and worked their way back into the top-five, making use of four fresh tires.
But what appears to be a theme this season for Fischer Motorsport, self-inflicted issues and mistakes prevented a better result. A human error by the pit crew in the re-fueling settings meant Mayer had to pit twice in the late stages of the race, to pick up enough fuel to make it to the end.
The mistake cost the team a very likely top-five finish – it would have been the team’s first this season. Still, Mayer managed to hold on in an exciting door-to-door position battle vs. the No. 13 Meguiars Porsche of FR13DA Sports Group and performed damage control with an eighth-place finish on the day.
The No. 14 Dallara P217 wound up 18th, three laps down, summarizing a disappointing weekend for Fischer Motorsport at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The No. 85 Porsche wound up 16th.
The VSCA SportsCar Championship will continue on June 18th with the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen.
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