* PENALTIES :
[MVR] P.Neves - receives a final warning for multiple avoidable contacts and low car control during the race - future incidents will lead to actual penalties or even race ban!
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July featured 2 rounds this year and the 2nd of those was run in South City - in the tricky Chicane Route in reversed direction. 2 long straights and several tricky turns in this rather short configuration benefitted very different cars,which kinda levelled things out - top5 in qualifying featured wide range of cars and their weight. With 23 drivers qualifying,this was the most attended round of the 3 latest rounds,however this race went into history books with lowest finishing percentage ever - 4 retirements from 22 starters resulted in 81.8% finishing percentage which is 3.2% less than previous worst from round 7 of 2023,coincidentally also run in South City.
The driver,who won already 3 rounds this season added the 3rd win to his achievements in this round - TJ qualified 2nd,but having advantage of the AWD car MZG Sedan,jumped into lead right at the start and left the competition chasing for rest of the race. That's the 3rd podium finish in row for the brazilian and he can now try to tie J.Holmes' record of 4 wins during a season. 2nd position was taked by Lagooga,who got the lightweigth LFS default car Raceabout for this round - 4th position in qualifying was improved to 3rd position quickly,but he had to work hard to gain another position,eventually succeeding. Only 2 cars in RandomCar are lighter than 1 ton and both of them are featured on podium in this round (besides the 1.7 ton winning car) - Loco used previous experience of the Stellar to race it from 5th position on grid to 3rd in finish.
With each of standings top4 scoring more points than the driver ahead,the standings are now tighter than before - just 10 points covering top4 with 2 others in slight distance within 1 round points score. The order however remains unchanged - R.Kardol still keeps the position in front despite 9th place finish with the Fraud Wheeler in this round. Thehemuli finished 7th with his Acosta and halved the gap to leader to 2 points,Unite scored all 4 possible bonus points from this race for fastest laps in both sessions with his FXO,5th place finish brought him to 5 points gap to leader,all of them chased by winner of 3 rounds in 4th position.
Team S1dus lost a point of their lead and is now 15 ahead of defending champions B2R,RGA is still 3rd,but already 55 points off lead,so they're racing to defend 3rd position now. Lithuania nibbled 3 points of Finland's lead,but defending champions are still massive 52 points ahead,Poland is still 3rd and already 89 points off lead. The leading car XRT did not score a point despite having 1 car in the field,but their lead has been reduced by just a single point (only 4 highest scores count) - Fraud Wheeler is 14 points away from top of the table. Raceabout is the new 3rd position,but has 3 other cars very close in the table.
19 different cars were used in this race by 23 drivers,a total of 27 were drawn,one of those to 4 drivers - Acosta now broke the tie and is now most drawn car,leaving Talot in 2nd place (just 1 draw).
Several new bests and repetitions of car results have been set during this race - TJ's 2nd place in qualifying and racewin were exact repetitions of MZG Sedan's best results. Lagooga set new bests for Raceabout - 4th place in qualifying and 2nd place in race both were one position better than Nosle's achievement just over 2 years ago. Loco qualified 5th and finished 3rd with the lightweight Stellar,which beats Mandula's result in exactly same track last season - previous bests were 7th in qualifying and 4th in race. Twincam raced the high-tech Adda to 6th position in this race,which is 2 positions better than the result Thehemuli achieved in last season's 1 hour long finale,8th position in qualifying was just a repetition of the best result. Trespasser redrew the GT-V 2600GTX when receiving it for previous round,but the randomizer stayed stubborn and awarded hin the same car also for this round - the lithuanian had no options than to set the initial best results for this car,which are 12th position in qualifying and 10th in race. Aplatz repeated exactly both best positions with Dash - 14th in qualifying and 11th in race,both set by Jsk last season.
There is a limitation of 2 track selections per season,so with 3rd race win,TJ is locked out from selection,which has been relayed to 2nd place finisher - he still has not replied and he has time until midnight of sunday to submit next track selection.