Tyre wear slows Tonizza and Pawlowski

David Tonizza and Kamil Pawlowski had a difficult day of it in the third round of the Mobileye GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Series. Once again therefore, the Nurburgring track proved to be something of a bogey for the Scuderia Ferrari Velas Esports Team drivers. The main factors were the unusually high temperatures which stressed the tyres, so that the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 drivers had to settle for a result that did not live up to expectations. 

Qualifying. Tonizza was as usual, extremely competitive when it came to qualifying and he ended up second in class and third overall. David stopped the clocks in 1’53”210, 20 thousandths off Tobias Grunewald (Mercedes-AMG E-Sports Team Unicorns of Love) and Dominik Blajer (Triton Racing). Kamil was 272 thousandths off the best time and therefore had to settle for 13th place. 

Race. In the race, Tonizza did a good job of immediately moving up a place, passing Blajer, while Pawlowski was also flying to move up to 11th. However, the Pole then had to pit with a puncture and immediately after that, he spun, flatspotting the tyres he had only just fitted, dropping down the order. Tonizza pitted with 40 minutes remaining, losing places to Nils Naujoks (BMW Team BS+Competition) and above all to Daire McCormack (Munster Rugby Gaming), who was managing the tyres well on his Bentley. Towards the end, Tonizza struggled even more with the tyres, losing three places to be sixth. Kamil received a Drive Through penalty for a contact with Nils Klinkmuller (Mercedes-AMG E-Sports Team HRT) and had to settle for 16th at the flag.  

Standings. The championship is still very open: McCormack has an 18 point lead over Tonizza, while Pawlowski is 16th. There are still two races remaining, on 6 July at the Hungaroring and on 3 August at Monza.