Vice-Championships in 2021 ARL GT Trophy!
A nine-rounds championship with GT3 cars was CoRe SimRacing’s challenge in the 2021 Apex Racing League GT Trophy – Dominik Engel, Sven Neumann, Maik Paluch, Pascal Stix, Thomas Arends and CoRe legacy member Carl Winkler took part in its’ second season competing with their CoRe Audi R8 GT3s, BMW M4 GT3s and and Porsche 911 GT3 cars through the season – becoming vice champions in the team championship while Sven Neumann finished the series as best CoRe entrant in a 2nd place overall.
The season started at Monza where all CoRe entries were competing in the Audi R8 GT3 while Thomas Arends took his chance to start his season in the McLaren MP4 GT3. After the following venues Hockenheim and Road Atlanta, the team decided to switch to the BMW M4 GT3 with Dominik Engel in his Porsche 911 GT3. With a third of the season in the bag, Sven Neumann and Pascal Stix were holding a promising Top-5 position in the overall driving standings while the team also kept their effort solid being 2nd and 4th in the team standings. Nevertheless mixed feelings at Red Bull Ring, Brands Hatch and Imola had to be tackled as potential wins and podium positions were lost due to bad luck and incidents. With Spa and Nürburgring as ending venues, the team was able to finish and grab valuable points for the reminder of the season – and then to end the series with three drivers in the Top-10. Sven Neumann was able to end his season with a bang by winning the final Nürburgring race. The team championship was sadly lost to Pailler Competition Esports who did a fantastic job keeping their point effort high at all times.
“I am quite happy with the outcome of the team despite having bad luck right in the middle of the season. Nevertheless our ending performance with the BMW was solid enough to finish with a promising result for the team. We will definitely be back for a next season effort!” – said Maik who finished in 9th overall. Carl : “Was a lot of fun to drive after almost 3 years again and first time with the GT3’s. Before the season started my target was to reach the top-10, but it went better than expected. In the end, I lacked a bit of pace in the BMW to reach a better result overall, but that’s all on me if you look at Sven. Hopefully I can improve and give it another go:” Dominik : “Congratulations to Sven and the CoRe One squad for 2nd in the championships! It was the first full league season in 4.5 years for me, so overall I’m pretty happy with 13th in the standings and with my improved pace in last few races, especially since I was on my own with the Porsche. It was great working together with everyone all-season long and hopefully I’ll be able to continue on that trend into the GT3 Pro Series.”
Last but not least Sven did round up his season : “I’m super happy with P2 in the drivers and team championship. I needed a few races to get into the GT3s since it’s a long time I drove them. I still struggled on the old school tracks like Road Atlanta or Brands Hatch. I really improved my pace during the season, resulting in a win at the RedBull Ring, a very good round at Spa and an awesome final race win on the Nürburgring. Huge thanks to all my team mates, I had a lot of fun practicing and racing with them. Also thanks to the guys from Apex Racing League for the organization of the series, on the next one!“