Words by Nick Foster.

This weekend we found ourselves at Round 2 of the German Porsche Carrera Cup Championship on the historic circuit of Hockenheim Ring.

Coming off the back of a relatively strong debut in Oschersleben. It was important to keep our momentum going and keep building as a team.

As it turned out, Germany turned on the Australian weather just for me and with 27 degrees across the weekend I felt like I was right at home!

Practice – 7th
Again having not tested nor seen the Hockenheimring prior to the race weekend, I was keen to head out in practice and to learn the circuit and dial myself in for the race weekend.

During the 1-hour session using older tyres from Round 1 we went through our testing program pitting multiple times for changes and progressively working our way forward.

A lot of the session was dedicated to me learning the circuit and dialling myself in for Qualifying and the races.

Not running new tyres in the session dropped us down the order a little, but I was happy with our progress over the 25 laps completed and was looking forward to Qualy.

Qualifying – Race 1 – 5th, Race 2 – 5th
As it turned out we had our best and most consistent Qualifying of the year. Easy after my round 1 effort! 😉 We ended P5 for both races, however the times were very close. Just half a tenth would have jumped me to 3rd and only a few tenths to Pole.

The team did a great job; I was actually slightly quicker on my final lap but got a little loose coming through the high-speed sector 3 in the famous Motor drome.

Still for us this was a really positive result and after a few changes we headed into the first race.

Race 1 – 5th
Starting from 5 the race was intense up the front with lots of movement in the high speed first sector and again in the first gear chicane. As the race panned out I was still in P5, but unfortunately with all the dicing I touched with another car causing some damage to the front of my Porsche.

I dropped pace slightly but pushed on in P4 for around half of the race. I came under pressure and eventually had to relinquish a position back to P5 however held off the train of cars behind me.

Obviously it was a little disappointing to not move forward in the race, but still P5 was a good result considering the front-end damage.

Race 2 – 5th
The start of race 2 was again fairly hectic with a lot of movement and rubbing paint going on inside the top 5. A few more changes over night proved to be promising as we battled for P3 in the early stages of the race.

Struggling a little bit with rear tyres I slowly dropped of the leading pack and had a quiet race to myself, ultimately finishing in 5th Position.

Although I love to be battling for podiums as a team we made a lot of progress during the weekend and I’m really looking forward to Round 3 on the famous Red Bull Ring.

Once again, big thanks to Outback Camps Australia and KUS Team75 Bernhard for their hard work and support.

Thanks for all your support.

Regards,
Nick