April 26, 2018

 

Edge Esports' Jarl Teien finally achieved his first win in the WTF1 Superleague after beating polesitter and championship favourite Alex Siebel in a straight fight on the narrow streets of Monaco.
Qualifying was far from a clear shootout with a quarter of the field suffering a back of the grid penalty from Barcelona and many others qualifying on harder compounds to allow for minimum amount of stops on a track where overtaking is the hardest.

Liam de Waal was the quickest man in qualifying but was relegated to P18 to be the first of the BOG group. Even though few managed to beat their personal bests and many also elected to choose their second fast laps to be safe with track limits, it was Alex Siebel on pole again, 0.226s behind de Waal and only 0.016s ahead of Ricardo Costa who continued his awesome qualifying form from Barcelona, although he too had to start from the back.

When all penalties had been dished out, Dennis Jordan lined up in P2 and Jarl Teien in P3, having qualified fourth and fifth respectively. Peter Brljak was the first man on the list who qualified on soft tyres, managing a brilliant P9 on the timesheet, but also taking to the back of the grid.

The race start was smooth for most of the field with Alex Siebel quickly pulling away a healthy lead over Jordan, who was holding back Teien, the Norwegian obviously much quicker in race trim than his best qualifying effort.

Further back, there was chaos amidst the back of the grid runners with a pileup before the tunnel where the vicims were Brljak, Kappet, Kilk and both Streetfighter cars. The big winners were FtF's Mark Hutchinson and EVAl's Argo Teder, who got through the carnage and gained positions while being on harder tyres, allowing the race to open very well for them.

Back up front, it was Siebel who pit first of the leaders to avoid the charging Teien's attempt to undercut him. Instead it was Jarl who stayed out to extend his first stint and the early pitters found themselves in traffic, unable to use their fresh tyres. When Teien finally pitted, he had overcut Jordan for second and quickly closed up to Siebel. He then made a bold move and cut his second stint short, pitting before Siebel and this time undercutting his rival successfully to the lead.

It was then an unknown if Jarl could keep his tyres intact for such a long final stint or if he had changed to an aggressive three-stop strategy, but in the end Teien never went back to the pits, successfully defended against Siebel, who had fresher tyres, in the end and took a well-earned victory, the first for himself and the freshly rebranded Edge Esports team.

Completing the podium and also the final person on the lead lap was Dennis Jordan, followed by Geoffrey Fournier and Mark Hutchinson who made great use of the hard tyres.

Tom Parker and David Fidock showed great intelligence in the carnage to pick their way up to sixth and seventh with Edonis's Mike Kwint a great eighth. Osvaldo Angelone was another supersub to bring the Red Archer home in 10th and Argo Teder opened his points tally in 12th.

The final points scorer was Borja Milan who blew his engine in the closing laps but had enough of a lead to still retain 15th. Marc Veit was the first out of the points, followed by former champioship leader Kappet who kept trucking despite being collected in every incident on the track.

As a result, Jarl Teien takes the lead in the drivers championship, moving only one point ahead of Kappet who himself is now only one point ahead of Siebel.

Full results: HERE.