Race report: Zandvoort, 28 September 2021
An early spin puts a dent in the final result, but the signs are encouraging for future races
Dry conditions at the Zandvoort circuit meant that drivers could make the most of its fast and flowing layout. And Copper Horse Racing’s white and green Lamborghini Huracán 2015 did just that, at least until the end of lap 4.
Qualification boost
There were clues in free practice that Copper Horse Racing could be starting towards the front of the grid. In the pre-race warm-up, David Rogers topped the leaderboard for a large part of the session with a 01m:38.439s and lapped even quicker (01m:37s:788) in qualifying to grab P6.
At the very front, last week’s winner Matthew North impressed again. His Aston Martin V8 Vantage took just 01m:36.570s to complete the lap, taking pole position by more than half a second.
Racing highs and lows
The good times continued briefly for Car 59, which moved up to 4th in the first lap of the race.
But clipping the inside high kerb on the long sweeping ‘Arie Luyendijk Bocht’ — easily done when navigating the Lamborghini’s 2m plus width around Zandvoort’s famously narrow track — on lap 4 proved to be costly. The slight detour unsettled the car into the start/finish straight, leaving the Lamborghini sat perpendicular to the traffic.
David was forced to sit and wait with seconds ticking by as the traffic went through and it was safe to turn back into the circuit. The incident meant that going into lap 5, Copper Horse Racing had dropped to P14.
What’s more, the aero damage sustained in the lap 4 incident had pushed the tuned setup slightly out of the window and made the fast right-hander the ‘Scheivlak’ a nervy trip each lap. Navigating other cars as they made mistakes and getting hit by a car attempting to overtake under yellow flags added to the challenge now facing Copper Horse Racing.
With lap times increasing, it was time for a pit stop. But with the damage that had to be fixed, a tyre change and a 30 second stop-go penalty (from the previous race) to be served, it was going to be a long one. All that could be done was to sit and wait for the traffic to pass through to lap the forlorn Lamborghini.
Out of the pits with a freshly repaired vehicle and new slicks and into traffic – Car 59 came out behind the green and black Porsche of Ethan Boudreaux who was in 7th place, with Copper Horse one lap behind. If we couldn’t fight at the front, we could at least try and work our way up as far as we could during the last half of the race. It would be a tough challenge – sat in 15th place with 14th place over 20 seconds ahead. So began a few laps of pressure as the faster Lamborghini attempted to get past the cars ahead on the tight circuit.
Eventually, success! A slick move through the inside of the tight ‘Hans Ernst Bocht’, gave a free stretch of track towards the next car – 6th placed Latvian, Armands Petrovics in his number 96 bright pink Mercedes-AMG.
It didn’t take long to hunt down Petrovics and a couple of laps later, he moved aside on the start-finish straight – car 59 wasn’t in his fight. As the race was coming to a close, the Lamborghini was now rapidly advancing on the Aston Martin of Dutchman Damian Herfkens. 12 seconds ahead, 6 seconds ahead, 2 seconds!
With the race leader (Nico Urbantat) on the final lap, it was time to make the move on Herfkens. And noticing that his Aston Martin had gone wide in turn 1, the Lamborghini took the inside – and through! Briefly! Traction control kicking in, the Aston accelerated out and caught the corner of the Lambo, pit-manoeuvring the car around to face the other way. A racing incident, nothing more.
The race over, David took the car back and over the line. P15 didn’t do it justice, but what a race!
Talking automotive cybersecurity
If previous race reports have piqued your interest in automotive cybersecurity, then you might enjoy the upcoming Secure-CAV webinar ‘Effectively Addressing the Challenge of Securing Connected and Autonomous Vehicles’ (live on Thursday 7 October 2021, 15:30 BST and then available on-demand).
During the 60 min webinar session you will learn –
- The best use of threat modelling techniques
- Methods for staying one step ahead of malicious hackers in the automotive space
- Effective methods for hardware-based attack detection
- How the Secure-CAV project looks at the problem of future vehicle security
Race results
Congratulations to Nico Urbantat of Germany who took his third win of the season at Zandvoort and sits at the top of the overall standings in Tier 10. The other drivers on the podium were P1 qualifier Matthew North in second place and Polish driver Robert in third.
Tune in next week to discover how Copper Horse Racing gets on at the legendary Suzuka circuit.
About the author
James Tyrrell is a Threat Modelling Analyst at Copper Horse.
