Skip to content

Published on Leave a comment on Celárek wins Finale and HappyKojot Clinches the Title in Adelaide

THR TTM 2025 — Round 6, Adelaide Parklands Circuit — 11th January 2026

For the grand finale of the 2025 THRacing Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, the intercontinental touring car championship that took drivers back to the final days of Group A in 1992, the choice was obvious. The Adelaide Parklands Circuit is an icon of touring car racing in Australia that traditionally hosted the season finale of the ATCC, and remains a pillar of the V8 Supercars calendar nowadays.

It marked the end of a spectacular season. Between the TTM and its second-tier support series TCTM, a whopping 80 drivers found themselves in the cockpit across the six rounds of the season. On top of that, the Clio Rookie Trophy accompanied the TTM throughout the entire season on Thursdays and also delivered action-packed racing with double-digit entry lists every single week, giving novices a taste of early 1990s touring car racing as well. A huge thanks goes out to every single one of you, both on track and behind the scenes, because this season was special.

At Adelaide, the teams of Nissan, Ford and Holden rejoiced at the weather forecast. While the early week saw incredibly hot temperatures of up to 45°C, the weekend cooled down considerably. That netted mild race conditions at a sunny 25°C with a south-southwesterly wind of 19 km/h with gusts of up to 37 km/h.

Unlike earlier rounds of the season, a cut penalty system was implemented to limit how much drivers benefitted from cutting the raised curbs in the Senna chicane. For every cut lap that a driver finished faster than their current average, a warning was issued. Every driver had a generous allocation of 12 warnings (without the first lap) before receiving a drive through penalty.

The final round of the season, once again commentated fantastically by touring car expert Microlin100, was won by Holden driver Adam Celárek ahead of pole sitter Marc Orós and Ford driver HappyKojot, who clinched the drivers title and cemented the Side Heart Motorsports duo's title defense in the teams championship. Despite having had the grid shrink to 25 cars after the cars of Willphaizer, pitman and Kuba Palubicki remained unoccupied, the manufacturers championship turned into a nail biter that was only decided during the final few laps.

Qualifying: Simruina Locks out the Front Row

For the final round of the season, the team that had lost the lead in the drivers and teams championships at Bathurst gave it everything they had once more, and locked out the front row. The star driver of Simruina Racing Team III, Marc Orós, drove to pole position in 1:38.113, beating his team mate Ayrton Titos by 0.062 seconds.

YouTube player

Third place on the grid went to Jacopo Hrynecko in the BMW of Linder Rennsport. After an unlucky race from pole position in Wellington, he sat out Round 5 at Bathurst but returned to a finale where his team mate Kuba Palubicki withdrew from the race shortly before the start due to fatigue after having travelled from Poland to the Netherlands on race day. Having already missed the round in Wellington, this cost the lead driver of Linder Rennsport the chance to bag the drivers championship.

The second row was completed by Holden ace Adam Celárek, who went into the final round of the season running sixth in the drivers championship. Attila Diner's Alfa Romeo and the BMW of the dethroned 2024 TTM Champion Jaroslav Cerny made up the third row. Boby Vakuinof and FMG qualified on the fourth row, and the Top 10 were completed by the Fords of HappyKojot and Florian Masse.

Four newcomers joined the grid for the finale. Having won the second-tier TCTM championship the previous night, Tomi Väänänen was invited to the TTM finale and qualified his #24 Mercedes from the NCB RaceTech team in 11th place. His runner-up team mate Niko Barnes (#23) joined the party as well, but started from the back after registering too late to set any qualifying laps. Also new on the grid were Max Scheidter (#38 Holden, from 13th) and Johannes Berger (#72 Nissan, from 21st), both of whom had impressed the organizers enough in the TCTM finale to be invited to the TTM round as well.

The best Nissan was qualified in 8th place by FMG. Audi sought redemption, with Viasa Racing driver Akira scoring a 15th place grid position.

Race

Highs and Lows of Lap 1

Off the start line, Ayrton Titos got a better launch than his Simruina team mate Marc Orós who got under attack from Jacopo Hrynecko's Linder BMW. Alfa Romeo privateer Boby Vakuinof caught a poor start that forced HappyKojot to go around whereby he lost the boost of his turbocharger, costing the Ford driver momentum. From 12th on the grid, Valentin Knechtel in the second Jolly Club Alfa Romeo had a fantastic start that allowed him to outaccelerate the freshly-baked TCTM champion Tomi Väänänen and the two Fords of HappyKojot and Florian Masse before entering Turn 1 alongside Vakuinof.
The Mercedes-Benz duo from Simruina Racing Team III was able to defend their 1-2 through the Senna chicane, but it was Ayrton Titos who took the early lead. [Photo: Florian Masse]
Marc Orós managed to stack the trio of Adam Celárek, Jacopo Hrynecko and Attila Diner behind himself, which allowed his team mate to open up a huge gap almost immediately. Trailing them were Jaroslav Cerny and FMG, followed by the Alfa Romeos of Valentin Knechtel and Boby Vakuinof. The Bulgarian stuck his nose in alongside FMG entering Wakefield Road but had to back out of it, and lost 4 positions.
By the time he arrived on Hutt Street, Marc Orós had managed to stack his pursuers into a 3-wide situation. The Spaniard promptly opened up a gap over Adam Celárek, Attila Diner, and Jacopo Hrynecko who got under attack from Jaroslav Cerny. Meanwhile, Valentin Knechtel had passed FMG, and the championship leading Ford of HappyKojot was next to attack the British Nissan driver.
Coming onto Rundle Road, Hrynecko ran wide once again, allowing Knechtel to slip through to 6th place. Meanwhile, FMG had been relegated to 10th place by the Fords of HappyKojot and Florian Masse.
HappyKojot jumped into 7th position at Brewery Corner after hitting the apex curb with all four wheels.
The first run through Dequetteville Hairpin proved to be unpleasant for the Jolly Club team. In the foreground, Attila Diner was passed for third place by Adam Celárek. In the background, his underprepared team mate Valentin Knechtel voided his strong start by losing control in the braking zone with a too rearward brake bias while attacking Jaroslav Cerny, and buried his ambitions for a podium in the drivers championship by losing 13 positions.
In the Race Course section behind the paddock, the blue-tailed Side Heart Pepsi can of Jordi Sumoy tapped the rear of FMG's Suntory Nissan and sent him sideways, blocking the path of Jacopo Hrynecko and passing both of them for 8th place in the process.
Having resumed the race in 19th place, Valentin Knechtel became the cue ball for D Weller (#6 BMW) to snooker Potatohedron (#67 Ford) into the gravel trap in the same curve.
The first lap ended with a huge lead for Ayrton Titos over his team mate Marc Orós, but that's not the whole story. That shade on the ground next to the 6th-placed Ford of HappyKojot was the TV car, which got stuck on the grid just like in Wellington. Marc Orós clipped it yet again but got luckier than last time, and Attila Diner was lucky to get away with clipping it as well. Meanwhile, the Audi of Akira threw little clouds of smoke across the track after the Venezuelan lost his connection to the race server, rounding out a rotten season for the man who had represented Audi alone during the first half of it.

Battles throughout the field

Adam Celárek quickly emerged as the strongest challenger to the fast pair of Mercedes-Benz 190Es from Simruina Racing Team III. Behind him, Attila Diner did his best in a daring experiment to make Medium tyres last a whole race, and defend 4th place from last season's champion Jaroslav Cerny who finally made it through an opening lap unscathed again.
FMG reopened the challenge against Jordi Sumoy for 8th at Wakefield on the second lap. The British driver kept the heavy Nissan alongside the Spaniard's agile BMW all the way to Hutt Street where he completed the pass going into the fast chicane.
Sumoy launched his next attack immediately afterwards and entered the Jones Straight alongside the Nissan, but FMG made use of his 490 hp engine to fend him off. In the background, the #24 Mercedes of the freshly-baked TCTM champion Tomi Väänänen had already arrived in the Top 10 in his first ever TTM race.
The NCB RaceTech driver found an opportunity to gain a position at the end of the Brabham Straight, when he outbraked Jordi Sumoy at the Dequetteville Hairpin. The white Holden Commodore with questionable sponsorship in the background was the #37 car driven by Max Scheidter from Germany, another TCTM participant who was invited to the TTM finale after a strong and consistent performance throughout the season.
The cheeky BMW driver from Spain struck back on the Race Course section, though, where he forced Väänänen wide enough to get under attack by the Alfa Romeo of Boby Vakuinof. In the background, the second NCB RaceTech Mercedes of TCTM runner-up Niko Barnes has come into view with black mirrors.
Marc Orós began his third lap with a crucial mistake in the Senna Chicane. After running wide, his car got launched high up in the air on the second curb, and snapped sideways upon landing.
The Spanish Mercedes driver brushed the concrete wall on the outside as he entered Wakefield Road, gifting second place to Adam Celárek in the Holden VL Commodore.
Following some mutual paint exchange in Foster's Corner, Väänänen was clear while Vakuinof fought to stay ahead of Hrynecko, followed by another drag race between the Alfa Romeo of Nat Stevenson and Max Scheidter's Holden Commodore, as well as Mercedes driver Christoph Mües and his former team mate (2024) Valentin Knechtel in the second Jolly Club Alfa Romeo.
Vakuinof and Hrynecko displayed total commitment through the Senna Chicane by catching plenty of air after the three Alfa Romeos from the previous picture won their respective duels.
Valentin Knechtel ran wide on the curb after the tail stepped out in turn 8, allowing Christoph Mües to retake the 15th position.
Niko Barnes in the second NCB RaceTech 190E debuted following his runner-up finish in the TCTM championship and kept Rolf Biber (Swiss Buddy Racing Alfa Romeo) busy by holding 17th place. In the background, Johannes Berger debuted in a Nissan Skyline and challenged the BMW of D Weller for 19th position. While the BMW driver from the United States defended the position here, the Austrian Nissan driver went through on the front straight.
After HappyKojot got a good run on Jaroslav Cerny down the Brabham Straight, the two of them entered the Race Course side by side.
Although the defending TTM champion from the Czech Republic did his best to hold on to his position, he ended up having to surrender 5th place to the championship leader behind the paddock.
Meanwhile, Boby Vakuinof went 3-wide with Tomi Väänänen and Jordi Sumoy at the Dequetteville Hairpin, but it was the Finnish Mercedes driver who managed to grab 9th place.
In the battle for 15th place, Knechtel managed to pass Mües again. The SG Stern driver tapped his former team mate from behind in the hairpin, causing both of them to get sideways without further consequences.
The battle for 9th continued, and Jacopo Hrynecko decided he wanted a piece of the cake again as well when he made a move for 11th again at Foster's Corner.
On the next lap, Florian Masse powered past Jaroslav Cerny's BMW on the Brabham Straight.
The reigning champion struck back on the brakes at the Dequetteville Hairpin ...
... and the battle continued all the way to the Race Course, with Cerny reclaiming the position on the run to the Foster's Corner.
While Tomi Väänänen's Mercedes quickly solidified 9th place by escaping into the distance for the time being, the battle between Sumoy, Vakuinof, and Hrynecko heated up behind the paddock.
The Bulgarian spun off the road after his Alfa Romeo was hit from behind by Hrynecko's orange M3 in the braking zone for Foster's Corner.
Meanwhile, the lead of Ayrton Titos was gradually melting away, and the threatening sight of Adam Celárek's Holden Commodore got bigger and bigger in his mirrors lap after lap.
Florian Masse then attempted his next attack on Jaroslav Cerny, but the reigning champion repelled it around the outside on the brakes at Dequetteville Hairpin.
Max Scheidter inherited 12th place from Nat Stevenson after the British Alfa Romeo driver had missed the apex of the same corner, and Boby Vakuinof captured 14th from Valentin Knechtel.
Moments later, Vakuinof sent his car down the inside of his British stablemate at Foster's Corner.
By the end of the front straight, 13th place was in the hands of the Bulgarian.
Knechtel sensed an opportunity against Stevenson at Wakefield Corner but ended up in the grass behind the curb in the braking zone with his left tyres.
Up front, Adam Celárek made his first attempt to grab the lead on Brabham Straight, but Ayrton Titos defended the inside line the brakes.
The Spaniard visibly got nervous and ran wide behind the paddock, but he managed to block Celárek from making a move on the run to Foster's Corner.
Jacopo Hrynecko grabbed 10th place from Jordi Sumoy when the Side Heart Pepsi driver ran wide at the Dequetteville Hairpin.
The Linder Rennsport driver from the Czech Republic then rapidly caught up with Tomi Väänänen ...
... before completely overshooting the Dequetteville Hairpin while trying to advance to 9th place. With Jordi Sumoy slipping back through as well, Hrynecko found himself back in 11th place again.
The next lap brought another successful defense of the lead by Titos against Celárek.
More shenanigans in the battle for 10th place: Jordi Sumoy in the #55 car attempted to make a move on Jacopo Hrynecko (#19). While Hrynecko overshot the corner but kept his position, Sumoy lost the rear and got passed by both Max Scheidter and Boby Vakuinof.
Knechtel outbraked Stevenson to capture 14th place.
The time was running out for Titos, and the Side Heart Motorsports Commodore was even glued to his rear bumper on Hutt Street.
Jones Straight was next, and that meant it was time for Celárek to pounce.
The new leader rounded Brewery Corner with two wheels off the ground before extending the gap on the run down the Brabham Straight.
Titos attempted to challenge for the lead once more at the Dequetteville Hairpin but overshot the corner.
After the early leader repeated his mistake behind the paddock and ran wide again, Celárek escaped into the distance and Titos's team mate Marc Orós was right behind him.
Time was running out for Attila Diner to make the most of his Medium tyres, but this spectacular run through Brewery Corner set him up ...
... for an attack on the third place of Marc Orós who had to go defensive on Brabham Straight and then dive bombed his team mate Ayrton Titos at the Dequetteville Hairpin to defend his position against the Alfa Romeo driver.
Simruina team orders were applied after the exit of the hairpin, with Titos allowing Orós to advance to 2nd place while he defended third place against the Jolly Club car.
Diner immediately attacked Titos and entered Foster's Corner alongside the Spaniard.
Despite falling behind with turbo lag coming onto the main straight, the German managed to get his nose ahead before the Senna Chicane and promptly used up one of his cut warnings, priming Alfa Romeo for a strong chance to grab the manufacturers championship.
Boby Vakuinof challenged Max Scheidter for 11th place around the outside at Wakefield Corner.
The Alfa Romeo driver lost the rear while drifting across the exit curb and nearly hit the concrete wall on East Terrace before bumping into the passenger (left) side of the Holden.
Jordi Sumoy did not need a second invitation and immediately went alongside the Bulgarian, who squeezed him onto the exit curb coming onto Flinders Street.
Vakuinof got a better exit onto Hutt Street and defended the position before escaping the Spaniard.
Two laps later, Ayrton Titos tried to recapture third place from Attila Diner at the Foster's Corner, but the Alfa Romeo stayed ahead.
The race of Christoph Mües looked good until just before the end of Lap 12. While rounding Foster's Corner in 16th place, the German heard a loud bang from within his PC and shut it down as a safety precaution. His graphics card remains under investigation to this day.
Reigning champion Jaroslav Cerny in the BMW stayed right on the tail of the championship-leading Ford driver HappyKojot in the battle for 5th place, but struggled to find opportunities to make a move. They were gradually beginning to melt down the gap between themselves and Titos, who remained just outside of striking distance to the Alfa Romeo of Attila Diner.
Shortly before the halfway point, Jordi Sumoy was under increasing pressure from Valentin Knechtel. In the background, Nat Stevenson missed the braking point for the Dequetteville Hairpin and bumped into the wall.
When the Spanish BMW driver made a crucial mistake on the brakes behind the paddock, the Jolly Club car advanced to 13th place - Knechtel's last position gain of the season in a very disappointing race given the championship podium ambitions that he had gone into the final round with.
In the meantime, Jacopo Hrynecko had caught up with Tomi Väänänen again and reopened the dispute over 9th position.
At the halfway point, Adam Celárek held a comfortable lead of several seconds over Marc Orós, and nobody else was anywhere near them anymore.
Attila Diner continued to hold third place at the halfway point, but Ayrton Titos continued to follow him like a shadow. HappyKojot and Jaroslav Cerny lurked just outside of striking distance, and Florian Masse in the blue Ford gradually started to catch up to them after a silent first half of the race.
Titos tried his luck again at the end of the lap at Foster's Corner, but had to back out of it.
The Spaniard caught the German off-guard on the next lap with a well-timed divebomb in the same corner, but slightly overshot the apex.
With a better exit and 2.2 bar of boost, the Jolly Club driver reclaimed third place on the run down the start/finish straight ...
... before applying for a Rallycross cockpit when he ran wide at the Senna Chicane.
The Spanish Mercedes driver's tail snapped sideways on the exit curb coming onto Flinders Street, providing plenty of breathing room to his German rival.
NeckR888 had started the final round of the season from the pit lane behind the rest of the field due to the large penalty points score that he had accumulated since joining for the second half of the season. After just under 34 minutes, he was running in 20th position when he smashed his Nissan Skyline 2000 GTS-R into the exit wall at Brewery Corner, and abandoned the race.
Daan Vanderstukken's Audi is about to wave by the battle for 15th place between Potathoedron in the Ford Sierra RS500 and the Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo Evoluzione S1 of Nat Stevenson whom he had just passed on Brabham Straight.
On the following lap, the British Alfa Romeo driver sent his engine to the angels with a money shift from 3rd to 2nd gear while accelerating out of the Senna Chicane, and ended his season in the escape road at Wakefield Corner.
Jacopo Hrynecko remained all over the back of Tomi Väänänen but struggled to find a way past the Finnish Mercedes-Benz driver who continued to hold 9th position.
While Jaroslav Cerny remained glued to the back of HappyKojot unable to find a way past for 5th place, Florian Masse closed the gap and turned the battle into a 3-way fight.
The reigning champion from the Czech Republic had to go defensive on Brabham Straight when the fast Frenchman launched his first attack after 40 minutes, but the BMW driver prevailed on the brakes at the Dequetteville Hairpin.
The battle for 9th place carried on: following a mistake by the NCB RaceTech driver at the Senna Chicane, Jacopo Hrynecko was able to stick his nose in alongside Tomi Väänänen at Wakefield Corner.
They remained side by side coming onto Flinders Street ...
... before exchanging some paint when Hrynecko completed the pass coming onto Hutt Street.
The battle for 6th place quickly turned into a no-holds barred fistfight. Jaroslav Cerny made contact with Florian Masse while trying to squeeze the French Ford driver back over to the left in the braking zone after having defended the inside on Brabham Straight.
On the following lap, he defended yet another attack by the French Ford driver here.
Another lap later, it was time for Ayrton Titos to show his ambitions once again. From more than five car lengths behind, the Spaniard launched an impressive dive bomb against Attila Diner at the Dequetteville Hairpin, which he rounded alongside the German.
The Simruina driver launched another attempt in the following braking zone but had to back out of it. Attila Diner remained on course for Alfa Romeo to seal the manufacturer's championship by a hair's width.
Jaroslav Cerny went through a Groundhog Day experience: lap after lap, the reigning TTM champion defended 6th place against the hard-charging attacks by Florian Masse in the Ford Sierra RS500 at the Dequetteville Hairpin.

Nail-biting Finale

With less than 15 minutes left on the clock, disaster struck Attila Diner. The German's plan to move ahead on Medium tyres and defend the third position looked like it might pay off until Ayrton Titos ran wide into the grass approaching the braking zone for Foster's Corner behind his Alfa Romeo.
The Spanish Mercedes-Benz driver slammed into the back of the Jolly Club car ...
... and sent Diner skidding into the run-off zone.
The precious few seconds that had split the duel for third place from the battle for 5th place evaporated in an instant, and Ayrton Titos was immediately passed by the Ford of HappyKojot.
That made the task for Attila Diner a whole lot more difficult, as he had four cars all over his tail now and the closest one of those was also the most powerful one of the lot. Florian Masse and Jaroslav Cerny are pictured with two wheels off the ground while running through the Senna Chicane nose to tail.
An unbelievable scene unfolded at Wakefield Corner: Florian Masse managed to outbrake the ABS-equipped BMW M3 of Jaroslav Cerny after the reigning champion had struggled to put the power down after hopping across the curbs at the Senna Chicane.
Cerny immediately launched an over-under counterattack on East Terrace and entered Flinders Street on the outside of the Frenchman's Ford ...
The BMW got sideways under power coming onto Hutt Street, and had to yield the position to the Ford.
Following a relatively silent first three quarters of the race, Max Scheidter managed to pass Tomi Väänänen for 10th place on the Brabham Straight, despite the Finn's counterattack around the outside.
Behind the wheel of the blue Suntory Nissan, FMG drove a silent race and maintained 8th place while getting up on two wheels at Turn 5 that took him from East Terrace onto Flinders Street.
Alfa Romeo's hopes in the manufacturers championship were hanging on for dear life on Attila Diner's aging Medium tyres approaching the final 10 minutes of the race ...
... when the German outbraked himself and got sideways at the Dequetteville Hairpin, while Ayrton Titos overshot the entrance in his defense against the Ford of Florian Masse.
Both pairs of cars accelerated out of the hairpin side by side.
While Diner managed to defend 3rd place for the time being, Florian Masse got sideways exiting the tight left-hander behind the paddock and ended up behind Jaroslav Cerny's BMW again.
The championship leader sent his Sierra down the inside of Attila Diner at Foster's Corner and captured third place, knocking Alfa Romeo off of the predicted throne in the manufacturers championship that was now tightly contested between BMW and Mercedes-Benz, depending on where Jaroslav Cerny would finish while Marc Orós was comfortably holding on to 2nd place in his 190E.
BMW matched Mercedes-Benz in the forecast for the manufacturers championship after Jaroslav Cerny forced Florian Masse to swerve in the braking zone at Wakefield Corner, leading the Frenchman to spin out while barely missing the rear bumper of Ayrton Titos's Mercedes-Benz.
The fans cheered as the Ford driver got back on track in a cloud of tyre smoke.
This was the moment when BMW grabbed the predicted lead in the manufacturers championship! In the #6 BMW M3, D Weller from the United States was shown blue flags but the lapped backmarker decided to go for the apex of the Dequetteville Hairpin while both Titos and Cerny were alongside each other directly behind him in the battle for 5th place. Weller blocked the Mercedes-Benz driver in the process, handing 5th place and one crucial extra point to BMW.
With the US-American driver still not yielding to the battling duo behind the paddock, Cerny backed out of a dive against him at Turn 13. Titos mirrored the same maneuver against Cerny, but approached the corner so tightly in the process that he ended up repeating his earlier mistake and ran wide at the exit.
As Weller still ignored the blue flags upon arrival at the Foster's Corner, the reigning champion took matters into his own hands and barged his US-American stablemate out of the way.
The reigning champion quickly caught up with Attila Diner, who was biting his teeth off on the 3rd-placed Ford of championship leader HappyKojot.
When the German Alfa Romeo driver ran wide at Turn 13, the BMW ace from Asahi Motorsport managed to get alongside him with five minutes left on the clock, but Diner managed to defend the position on the inside at Foster's Corner.
Ayrton Titos was eventually caught by Florian Masse again, who sent his Sierra down the inside of the Spaniard at the Dequetteville Hairpin. The Simruina driver caught the better exit and stayed ahead - and with the battles ahead, the 5-car train battling for the last spot on the podium was reforming again.
Attila Diner launched another attack against HappyKojot around the outside at Wakefield Corner with just three minutes left on the clock.
The Polish driver continued to make his Ford as wide as possible as he backed up his rivals behind him coming onto Flinders Street.
After Ayrton Titos ran wide onto the grass exiting Turn 9, Florian Masse was all over the Simruina 190E's rear bumper through Brewery Corner and effortlessly flew past to grab 6th place on Brabham Straight.
Seconds later, Jaroslav Cerny launched a dive bomb against Attila Diner while braking for the Dequetteville Hairpin.
The action was compounded further by Florian Masse, who lost the rear of his Sierra on the brakes and skidded into both Cerny and Diner sideways.
With the reigning champion getting back underway from the chaos more quickly, 4th place went to him, and Alfa Romeo suddenly found itself predicting to be tied with Ford in the manufacturers standings, unless Cerny would manage to find a way past HappyKojot's Ford.
In a matter of a few corners, the reigning champion was glued to the back of the championship leader again, and eager to find a way to finally get ahead of the youngster from Poland.
At the same time, the battle for 10th place became a 3-way fight after Boby Vakuinof had caught up to it. He sent his Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo Evoluzione S1 down the inside of Tomi Väänänen's 190E at Wakefield Corner.
After running down East Terrace and Flinders Street side by side, the Finn turned in too early for Turn 6 that leads onto Hutt Street, and ran wide after bumping into the driver side of the Alfa Romeo.
At the end of the penultimate lap, Ayrton Titos attempted to reclaim 6th place from Florian Masse around the outside at Foster's Corner. Although the Frenchman ran wide, he was able to defend the position.
The Spaniard went into the final lap suddenly having to watch his rear view mirrors when the translucent cat eyes on the SEV Marchal logos of FMG's illuminated headlights began to stare him down.
Seconds later, Boby Vakuinof attacked Max Scheidter on the brakes at Wakefield Corner ...
... and captured 10th place on the final lap.
When Tomi Väänänen then decided to get involved as well and tapped the left rear corner of Scheidter's Holden VL Commodore into a skid at Turn 5, the decision for the last spot in the Top 10 was cemented.
In the final race of the season, Adam Celárek finally managed to release the shackles on his kangaroo. After a strong qualifying, the Czech Holden ace kept his nose clean during the opening laps when his strongest rival of the day made his crucial mistake, and then calmly hunted down the early leader before controlling the rest of the race. In the Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV, he scored Side Heart Motorsports' third race win of the season, defended their 2024 TTM Teams Championship trophy in style, and climbed onto the podium of the drivers championship!
Having started from the front row alongside his team mate Ayrton Titos with his second pole position of the season, Marc Orós and Simruina Racing Team III gave it everything they had in the final round of the TTM 2025. But bogging down on the grid and a crucial mistake on Lap 3 put the Spaniard behind the Holden of Adam Celárek, whose race win denied Mercedes-Benz the manufacturer's title by a hair's width.
The task of HappyKojot looked very difficult after qualifying the car on the 5th row. He had a decent lead in the drivers championship over Marc Orós, but the Spaniard started the race from pole position on a track that suited his car very well. However, the Side Heart Motorsports driver crucially stayed calm and controlled when it mattered, despite spending most of the race defending against the attacks of the dethroned 2024 TTM champion Jaroslav Cerny. To top it all off, the Polish youngster drove the Ford Sierra RS500 onto the podium at a track where only few believed that this was even possible.

Official Top 5 Race Result

  1. Adam Celárek (Holden Commodore) - 1:01:32.614 - best lap 1:39.001
  2. Marc Orós (Mercedes-Benz 190E) - +7.680s - best lap 1:39.019
  3. HappyKojot (Ford Sierra RS500) +39.349s - best lap 1:39.820
  4. Jaroslav Cerny (BMW M3) +39.681s - best lap 1:39.384
  5. Attila Diner (Alfa Romeo 75 S1) +40.839s - best lap 1:39.458

Final Championship Score

HappyKojot has delivered the goods! With a strong final race that saw him climbing from 9th on the grid to the last step on the podium, the Polish youngster rescued a 7 point lead across the line and deservedly crowned himself the 2025 TTM Champion. A strong finale saw Marc Orós climbing to the runner-up position by taking second place in Adelaide, and Adam Celárek advanced from sixth to third place in the drivers championship by winning the final race.

Drivers Championship, Top 10

  1. HappyKojot (176 points, 2 wins)
  2. Marc Orós (169 points, 1 win)
  3. Adam Celárek (163 points, 1 win)
  4. Attila Diner (154 points)
  5. Valentin Knechtel (151 points, 1 win)
  6. Jaroslav Cerny (143 points)
  7. Ayrton Titos (141 points)
  8. Boby Vakuinof (140 points)
  9. Kuba Palubicki (139 points, 1 win)
  10. Florian Masse (124 points)

In the Teams Championship, Side Heart Motorsport had already arrived at Adelaide as the favourites. Although Simruina Racing Team III was off to a great start with the front row lockout and a superb first lap, it wasn't enough to challenge the defending Teams Champions who ended up scoring the final win of the season, along with third place. However, the Spanish duo managed to knock the German Alfa Romeo duo from Jolly Club off of the second step in the final round of the race with a solid team performance, while Knechtel lacked the pace to make it back into the Top 10 after his early spin. Once again, Side Heart Motorsports have been the team to beat, and won the 2025 season by 29 points.

TTM 2025 Teams Championship, Top 10

  1. Side Heart Motorsports (339 points)
  2. Simruina Racing Team III (310 points)
  3. Jolly Club (305 points)
  4. Asahi Motorsport (242 points)
  5. Linder Rennsport (225 points)
  6. Side Heart Pepsi (172 points)
  7. Team Suntory (135 points)
  8. Simruina Racing Team II (132 points)
  9. SG Stern (101 points)
  10. Side Heart HIFI (86 points)

The Manufacturers Championship concluded with an absolute nail-biter!

Jaroslav Cerny's 4th place in the final race of the season gave the brand from Munich the 2025 title, beating Mercedes-Benz by just two points. Another two points behind them, both Ford and Alfa Romeo scored 198 points, with 3rd place going to Ford with two race wins against one by Alfa Romeo. The Italian manufacturer went through a roller coaster of emotions in its TTM debut season and already had a hand on the manufacturers championship trophy, but ended up empty-handed after falling off of the championship podium in the final minutes of the race, highlighting just how close of a championship this was.

Holden's strong late charge brought them within spitting distance of the top four manufacturers, but the inconsistent results of Adam Celárek and Adam Keefe throughout the season made the difference. For Nissan, the season proved that their aging Skyline 2000 GTS-R is due for a replacement. In Ingolstadt, meanwhile, Ferdinand Piëch's engineers at Audi have quite the task on their hands. Might they be able to find a loophole in the rulebook by twisting an untreated crankshaft into a flat-plane configuration, or will they bow out entirely? Time will tell!

HappyKojot was the man to beat in the 2025 season. Who will it be next time?

Finally, we'd like to thank each and every one of you for an amazing season and every contribution that it took to make it happen. The TTM 2025 was more than just a vintage touring car championship on a simulator - it was an experience to behold.

Published on Leave a comment on HappyKojot defeats Palubicki – Battles and Bumper Cars on the Mountain

THR TTM 2025 — Round 5, Mount Panorama Circuit — 14th December 2025

After the fourth round in the harbour of New Zealand's capital did its best to deplete the spare part inventory of the TTM teams, the circus moved on to the spiritual home of motorsport in Australia: the legendary Mount Panorama Circuit. With a little over six iconic kilometers that wind their way up and down Mount Panorama with an elevation change of 174 m and gradients of up to 16%, every single corner breathes history.

Based on the real-world weather forecast on site, the weather for qualifying was surprisingly mild at 27°C with a wind of 17 km/h from the west. For the race on 14th December 2025, the asphalt was considerably warmer and the wind became more difficult to deal with, featuring gusts of up to 52 km/h. The superb live broadcast by Microlin100 was sadly cut short by a power outage in the final minutes of the race, depriving viewers of a stunning finale in the battle for the win.

On race day, the drama peaked, resulting in a record four protests for race control to deal with, resulting in penalties against three drivers. As the checkered flag dropped, four manufacturers found themselves in the Top 4. HappyKojot scored his second win of the season in his mighty Ford Sierra RS500, beating sensational pole sitter Kuba Palubicki in the BMW by 3 seconds. Adam Celárek completed the podium in his Holden Commodore, and Alfa Romeo privateer Boby Vakuinof achieved his season-best 4th place.

Qualifying: Palubicki Conquers Pole Position on two Wheels

After he missed Round 4, Kuba Palubicki returned to the TTM field in style at Bathurst. With his third pole position of the season, the Netherlands-based BMW driver underlined his ambitions once again. The Linder Rennsport driver went straight to the top of the field at 02:12.624, beating even the legendary qualifying performance of Dick Johnson with a 680 hp Sierra RS500 in the 1992 Bathurst 1000 shootout.

YouTube player

The next four cars were split by less than one tenth of a second: HappyKojot 2nd in the Ford, Boby Vakuinof 3rd in the Alfa, Florian Masse with his best qualifying performance of the season in 4th, and then the Mercedes-Benz 190E of Ayrton Titos. His team mate Marc Orós from Simruina Racing Team III completed the third row, and Adam Celárek qualified 7th in the best Holden. Behind him, a swarm of four Alfa Romeos waited behind him to pounce as soon as the lights would go out: Stevenson, Diner, Knechtel, Willphaizer.

The best Nissan was directly behind them: FMG in 12th place. Meanwhile, Audi's disappointing season continued with the 25th and 28th starting positions. Three new faces joined the grid in Bathurst and qualified as follows:

  • #60 Richard Rossier (Swiss Buddy Racing Mercedes 190E): 27th place
  • #54 David Schubert (SG Stern Mercedes 190E): 29th place
  • #43 Eetu Karjunen (privateer BMW M3): 31st place

The race

Chaotic Start produces Trail of Desctruction

With the race taking place in fantastic weather, everything was prepared for a great race. However, the start immediately rivalled the surprisingly large mayhem of the previous round, because three of the top 4 qualified drivers failed to get off the line properly. In the first row, HappyKojot managed to stall his Ford Sierra RS500, forcing Florian Masse to take evasive action where his engine promptly fell out of the boost range. Together with Boby Vakuinof, whose Alfa Romeo remained stationary for so long that Ayrton Titos in the 190E with pink mirrors sought his luck by sharply moving to the right, a very effective roadblock was formed!

As nobody else in the first two rows managed to get his car off the line properly, Kuba Palubicki sprinted towards the first turn completely uncontested. Behind him, everyone blocked each other, and two teams had team-internal collisions: at Simruina Racing Team III, Ayrton Titos forced his championship-leading team mate Marc Orós into the grass, and Jolly Club's Valentin Knechtel squeezed Attila Diner into the pit wall.

Directly behind this chaos, the rapid Nissan debutant from the previous round in Wellington then sideswiped the Alfa Romeo of Willphaizer into the pit wall after he had backed off in response to the contact between Knechtel and Diner ahead.

Willphaizer ended up in the pit wall in such an unlucky way that it abruptly decelerated and spat his car back out sideways, creating a pileup involving several other cars. For this, NeckR888 received a 30 second time penalty and 6 licence points that brought his score to 8, earning the Calsonic Team Impul driver a start from the pits for the subsequent final round of the season.
Having redressed the position to his Jolly Club colleague Attila Diner, Valentin Knechtel then managed to miss his braking point for the first corner, and fired his team mate's car into the wall at Hell Corner, right across the noses of Florian Masse and Ayrton Titos. With this stunning own goal for Jolly Club, Knechtel threw away an important match ball for the teams title and severely lowered Attila Diner's chances for a podium in the drivers championship.
Knechtel was then hit from behind by NeckR888, who had already started a pileup on the main straight.
The victim of that collision ended up being Florian Masse, because Valentin Knechtel's Alfa Romeo got pushed into him and sent the Frenchman straight through the gravel trap. In the pit exit on the far left, Daan Vanderstukken is visible in the 28th-qualified Audi V8.
The Belgian maintained fair play by waiting for the field to pass him before he got underway. With the chaos on the start line and in Hell Corner out of the way, the field entered Mountain Straight. Time to sit back and relax.
Oh, nevermind. In the chaos at turn 1, FMG had to drive through the pit exit's merging lane after contact with reigning champion Jaroslav Cerny. While the British Nissan driver bounced back onto the tarmac after having had to put two wheels on the grass, the Czech BMW driver made contact with him once more while trying to grab the slipstream of Marc Orós. That sent the Nissan into the grass for a second time and forced him to back off to regain control, leading DJMD19 in the Simruina Mercedes with green mirrors to hit the back of the Nissan. Immediately afterwards, DJMD19 was hit by his Spanish compatriot Jordi Sumoy (BMW), who fired him into the wall. While FMG fought to regain control, he sideswiped the Ford of Florian Masse into the grass.
Tight racing at the back of the field: Christoph Mües enters Griffin's Bend ahead of Panagiotis Mazarakis and returning 2024 entrant Eetu Karjunen. Behind him, Attila Diner began his comeback efforts after having been disposed into the turn 1 run-off area by his own team mate.
First across the top of the mountain was pole sitter Kuba Palubicki, chased by Boby Vakuinof in the Alfa Romeo. Next up was Adam Celárek, who massively profited from the starting chaos and advanced from 7th to 3rd place. His team mate HappyKojot in the Ford followed in his footsteps.
NeckR888 completed the early top 5, demonstrating how much he profited from his two incidents on the way into the first corner, the scars of which were worn by his car. He led a freight train of competitors down the mountain: Adam Keefe, Ayrton Titos, Nat Stevenson, Valentin Knechtel, Jaroslav Cerny, Marc Orós, Florian Masse and FMG are in the frame in the background.
Arriving at The Chase for the first time, Florian Masse attempted to make a move against Jaroslav Cerny for 10th place and touched the inside curb while Cerny maintained a very tight line for having another and less agile car alongside. The two subsequently made contact and got sideways in the braking zone.
While Cerny somehow managed to regain control with the assistance of his M3's ABS, the Ford's rear end slipped out of Masse's control and he skidded through the gravel trap, costing him two positions. [Photo: FMG]
Just a few positions further back, the same scenario unfolded between Attila Diner and Christoph Mües.
While ABS helped Mües to keep his Mercedes on track, the Jolly Club Alfa Romeo got on the grass, and Attila Diner spun across the track.
Lucky to avoid further collisions, Diner dug himself out of the gravel trap and carried on. Three steps forward and eight steps back: all in all, the Jolly Club driver ended up on track another 5 places further back than where he had been at the end of the Mountain Straight. Truly a first lap to forget.
Just after Diner got back underway, he witnessed the Audi of Akira hitting the back of Nico Bonnefon's BMW ahead of him, approaching Murrays Corner.
While the BMW bumped into the concrete wall and carried on, Akira crossed the track in the braking zone and continued to mash the brakes, effectively brake-checking DJMD19 - the victim of the Mountain Straight chaos two minutes earlier.
By the time Willphaizer entered the pit lane for repairs, Akira's Audi faced the opposite direction.

Battles throughout the field

Fueled by the frustration of having fallen victim to several collisions on the opening lap, Florian Masse missed the braking point at Griffins Bend while attempting to outbrake FMG's Nissan on Lap 2. After locking up his front right wheel for close to 50 meters, his Ford piled into the right rear corner of Jaroslav Cerny's BMW M3, leading both of them to spin out.
While reigning champion Jaroslav Cerny carried on after losing 9 positions, this crash ended his last chance to stay in contention for a strong position in the drivers championship. This crash was also the last straw for the 4th-qualified Ford driver: facing the wrong direction and the prospect of having to wait for the entire field to pass through before continuing on his way, the Frenchman threw in the towel and abandoned the race.
When Adam Celárek attacked Boby Vakuinof for 2nd place on the inside, he tried to brake sharply before the kink instead of trying to use more of the real estate between himself and Vakuinof to let himself take a wider cornering radius. His underdamped Holden responded to this idea by bouncing into the passenger side of the Alfa Romeo at 273 km/h ...
... and spun out while Vakuinof miraculously kept his Alfa Romeo under control after flying into the gravel trap at 260 km/h.
While Celárek lost 3rd place to his team mate, the Bulgarian Alfa Romeo driver returned to the track holding 2nd position on very dirty tyres.
With Vakuinof struggling for traction on his dirty tyres, HappyKojot capitalized on the opportunity and advanced to 2nd place before Murrays Corner. Meanwhile, NeckR888 had advanced to 4th, and Celárek had to defend his Top 5 position around the outside against Adam Keefe.
After Nat Stevenson had powered past Ayrton Titos on Mountain Straight, the Spanish Mercedes-Benz driver from Simruina Racing Team III sent his 190E down the inside of the Alfa Romeo at Forrest's Elbow.
When two people quarrel, a third rejoices: Valentin Knechtel promptly picked up two positions at once on Conrod Straight, because Titos's attack on Stevenson had compromised both of their exits.
The German promptly outbraked himself at The Chase, allowing both of them to get back through.
The boost hit just right for Knechtel exiting Murrays Corner, allowing the German to power slide his Alfa Romeo straight into his next attack on the Spanish Mercedes-Benz driver's position.
Titos tried to cover the attack by squeezing the German towards the pit wall, but the naturally aspirated 2.5L engine in his 190E was no match for 2.2 bar of boost on the Alfa Romeo's 1.76L sewing machine.
Arriving at Hell Corner, FMG suddenly tried to send his Nissan down the inside of both of them but had to back out of it, allowing Titos's team mate Marc Orós to get alongside FMG on the outside.
Titos then performed a master class in acting as a water carrier, boxing in FMG behind himself while letting his championship-leading team mate pass him, before still defending the position against FMG at Griffins Bend. The British Nissan driver was desperate enough to attempt launching a rather illegal pass with four wheels in the grass on Mountain Straight, but his Nissan bounced violently and he had to back out of it. Following a formal protest, Race Control deemed no further action necessary, as no harm had been done.
The Nissan driver stormed past him on the run down Conrod Straight, though, and managed to stay ahead despite this valiant counterattack going into The Chase.
Adam Celárek captured 4th place and then gradually pulled away from NeckR888 after outbraking the Nissan driver at Griffins Bend. By now, both of them had pulled out a sizeable margin against the cars behind.
While the Top 5 continued to maintain notable margins between each car, things heated up in the second half of the Top 10. Adam Keefe increasingly got under pressure from Nat Stevenson, who still had Valentin Knechtel in his rear view mirror. Marc Orós closed the gap and kept FMG at bay. Ayrton Titos began to fall behind due to bodywork damage.
The Iron Lion spits flames through the side exhaust of Adam Keefe's Holden Commodore while Knechtel captures 7th place from Nat Stevenson at Griffins Bend. In the background, FMG sent his Nissan down the inside of Marc Orós, but slightly overshot the corner.
That allowed Marc Orós to bring his nose ahead again by the time the pair arrived at The Cutting.
Incredibly, the pair rounded this steep curve side by side!
FMG maintained the challenge all the way to Quarry before he admitted defeat.
Orós quickly closed the gap to the two Alfa Romeos across the top of the mountain, and was all over the back of Stevenson's Alfa Romeo again by the time they got to Forrest's Elbow - just in time to watch them escape into the distance again, and for this game of cat and mouse to go into the next round.
Another lap, another attack: FMG powers past Marc Orós on Mountain Straight once again.
This time, it took the Nissan driver until The Cutting to skid off the racing line again.
While FMG was busy applying plenty of opposite lock as the pair accelerated into Quarry side by side, Marc Orós recaptured the position around the outside.
Moments later, Nat Stevenson lost control of his Alfa Romeo while coming down the Esses ...
... and crashed into the concrete wall nearly head-on. It would appear that it is safe to say that the panoramic view in the background was the least of his concerns at this point in time.
Stevenson's accident allowed Marc Orós, FMG, and Ayrton Titos to move ahead.
Valentin Knechtel eventually caught up with Adam Keefe, and launched an attack into Murrays Corner around the outside after the US-American Holden driver had gotten sideways exiting The Chase.
Aided by a better exit on the outside, the boosted little Alfa Romeo outaccelerated the big Holden.
The Asahi Motorsport driver made another error at Griffins Bend, allowing Marc Orós to attack the Holden driver.
The Spaniard cheekily completed the pass for 7th place around the outside at The Cutting.
With Knechtel holding up the three cars behind him in the downhill section, the Mercedes driver on his tail found himself in a precarious position when the quartet rounded Forrest's Elbow.
Adam Keefe attacked Marc Orós on Conrod Straight and got his nose ahead going into The Chase, where he struggled to maintain control of his Holden and forced the Mercedes driver to run wide.
The Simruina driver ended up in the gravel trap and lost two positions, while FMG capitalized on the quarrel ahead by passing Adam Keefe's Holden around the outside in the braking zone!
With Keefe unable to maintain the pace of FMG's Nissan in the following laps, Orós closed in on the Holden driver enough to catch him off-guard from more than a car length behind at Murrays Corner.
Orós executed a textbook dive bomb and entered the main straight alongside the Holden.
The Holden fans at Hell Corner could hardly believe their eyes when they saw the Mercedes driver briefly going through on the brakes after the Commodore had been unable to open up enough of a gap on the main straight. Adam Keefe's Iron Lion then brought him back ahead on the run up the Mountain Straight. In the pit lane, the retired Sierra of Florian Masse had since been joined by both Audis: another race to forget for the manufacturer from Ingolstadt.
The Spaniard launched a daring attack exiting McPhillamy Park and went through on the outside at Skyline.
Desperate to maximize the gap, Marc Orós pushed his 190E through The Dipper with two wheels off the ground. In the background, his team mate Ayrton Titos and the pre-crashed Alfa Romeo of Nat Stevenson complete this 4-way battle.
The big Holden V8 of Adam Keefe powered back through on Conrod Straight.
Nat Stevenson launched an attack against Ayrton Titos, but the Spaniard prevailed on the brakes at The Chase.
In the meantime, Attila Diner silently fought his way back up to 12th place and proceeded to pull away rapidly from the Side Heart HIFI Sierra of Potatohedron from the United States.
Adam Keefe made his Holden as wide as possible across the top of the mountain, compressing the battle for 8th place into a tightly-packed 4-car formation once again.
This allowed Nat Stevenson to power past Ayrton Titos to grab 10th place, despite the Mercedes-Benz driver's valiant counterattack at The Chase.
When Adam Keefe ran wide onto the curb exiting McPhillamy Park, Marc Orós launched yet another attack around the outside into Skyline.
Orós captured 8th place while Keefe managed to keep his Holden out of the tyre barrier. In the background, the other Simruina Racing Team III car of Ayrton Titos missed the turn in point and takes the escape road.
The US-American powered back through on Conrod Straight. In the background, Attila Diner starts to appear on the horizon, with the German rapidly catching up lap after lap.
The Spaniard had none of that, and immediately sent his Mercedes-Benz down the inside of the Holden again at The Chase.
Arriving at Murrays Corner, Orós defended 8th place against the Holden driver.
The Simruina driver then made a mistake at Hell Corner and ran wide.
That allowed both Adam Keefe and Nat Stevenson to power through on the climb up Mountain Straight.
Stevenson even attempted an attack on the Holden driver, but Adam Keefe prevailed. Marc Orós made an attempt around the outside against Stevenson, but the Mercedes-Benz's acceleration out of Griffins Bend was no match for the turbocharged Alfa Romeo.
Going into The Cutting, however, Marc Orós sent his 190E down the inside of the Englishman's Alfa Romeo, and the pair rounded the steep curve side by side. Meanwhile, Attila Diner has arrived on the rear bumper of Ayrton Titos, turning this fight for 8th place into a 5-way battle.
Against all odds, Stevenson defended 9th position on the outside at The Cutting.
Coming through The Dipper, the five of them were nose to tail.
A mistake on the brakes saw Stevenson locking up his front right while defending the inside against Marc Orós, who exited Forrest's Elbow alongside Stevenson's Alfa Romeo.
Here comes the Turbo Train: Nat Stevenson outaccelerates Marc Orós through the kink at the top of Conrod Straight while Attila Diner powers past Ayrton Titos.
By the end of the straight, the Jolly Club driver had passed both of the Simruina Racing Team III entries.
Marc Orós promptly recaptured 10th place from Diner on the brakes at The Chase.
The Jolly Club driver then outaccelerated the Simruina 190E around the outside ...
... and set at trap at Murrays Corner.
Orós fell for it, putting two wheels into the grass in the braking zone before skidding into the gravel trap before resuming the race in 12th place.
This opened the door for Potatohedron's RS500 to catch up and power past the championship leader on Mountain Straight.
The next attack on 8th place was launched by Nat Stevenson at Murrays Corner, but he could not make it stick.
Instead, he himself got under attack on the outside by the Jolly Club Alfa Romeo of Attila Diner.
Stevenson attempted another move against Keefe at Hell Corner, but the Holden driver prevailed.
Arriving at Griffins Bend, the two Alfa Romeos were still side by side and their duel boiled over.
Attila Diner braked too late and bumped into the back of Adam Keefe's Holden before tangling with Stevenson's Alfa Romeo, leading both of them to crash straight into the tyre wall. While Diner got back on the road behind Ayrton Titos, Stevenson lost another two positions and found himself back in 13th position after this ordeal.
Meanwhile, his team mate with the blue windscreen banner was busy with keeping the Suntory Nissan of FMG behind him, with the British driver waiting for a mistake by Valentin Knechtel to capitalize on in the battle for 6th place.
Attila Diner's next opportunity to gain a position arose at the end of Conrod Straight, where he went into The Chase on the outside of Ayrton Titos's Mercedes-Benz 190E.
Although the Simruina 190E driver tried to recapture 9th place on the brakes, the Jolly Club driver prevailed.
Just two long straights later, the Mercedes-Benz driver had to defend his 10th place against the immensely powerful Ford Sierra RS500 of Potatohedron at Griffins Bend.
The US-American Ford driver then got under attack by Titos's team mate Marc Orós, with the Alfa Romeo of Nat Stevenson following in his footsteps ...
... before pouncing on the Spaniard to capture 12th place from him.
Orós then misjudged the braking of Stevenson's Alfa Romeo and went off the track at The Chase.
After a lengthy detour through the gravel trap that added plenty of dirt to his tyres ...
... the drivers championship leader applied too much throttle and spun his 190E into the wall.
The defending champion gladly accepted the gift and advanced to 13th position - it was only little more than giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell, though, because Jaroslav Cerny has been experiencing a very unlucky season.
The fans cheered as Simruina's lead driver Marc Orós lit up the tires to make his car point into the right direction again. Having descended to 14th place from 6th on the grid, this race did not go according to plan at all for the Spaniard.
Meanwhile, Valentin Knechtel repelled an attack by FMG at Griffins Bend and continued to hold 6th place.
In the battle for 8th place, Attila Diner boldly stuck in his nose going into the Frog Hollow, and rounded Sulman Park side by side with Adam Keefe.
Still side by side, the two of them went through McPhillamy Park.
The Jolly Club driver completed the pass for 8th as the two of them went into Skyline.
Meanwhile out in front, Kuba Palubicki continued to lead the way in his BMW M3 and maintained a stable lead over the Ford Sierra RS500 of HappyKojot.
Third place was still held by Boby Vakuinof, but Adam Celárek in the Holden gradually began to chip away at the gap between them.
Another long straight, another attack on a Mercedes-Benz: Potatohedron grabs 10th place from Ayrton Titos at the end of Conrod Straight ...
... only for the Spaniard to strike back on the brakes at The Chase.
The Ford powered back through to 10th place on Mountain Straight.
Crucial moment in the battle for 8th place: Attila Diner manages to lap the Mercedes-Benz 190E of Richard Rossier before Griffins Bend, but Adam Keefe gets stuck behind the Swiss Buddy Racing driver.
The battle for 10th was down to two cars immediately after that, because Nat Stevenson lost the rear and spun into the tyre wall. In the end, he was classified in 13th position.
They finally managed to lap Richard Rossier at McPhillamy Park ...
... where Ayrton Titos was able to carry more momentum through the exit and passed Potatohedron.
The 550 hp Ford powered back through on Conrod Straight, and this time Potatohedron made it stick.

Dramatic Finale

Behind the wheel of Side Heart Pepsi's blue-tailed can, Jordi Sumoy accelerates out of The Cutting while attempting to defend 15th place against a rather pristine Holden driven by Max Solmyr.
In the final ten minutes of the race, the Spaniard cracked under pressure and drifted wide at Griffins Bend.
The Aggressive Snails driver from France made use of the opportunity and captured 15th place.
Meanwhile, Ayrton Titos - still battling for 10th place with Potatohedron - was being caught from behind by Jaroslav Cerny in the #1 BMW of Asahi Motorsport.
Two late newcomers for the 2025 season of the TTM kept Pitman busy in the battle for 24th position: the #43 BMW of Eetu Karjunen, and David Schubert in the #54 Mercedes of SG Stern.
Karjunen and Pitman made contact upon arrival at The Chase, forcing the BMW driver to go through the gravel trap. He gained the position in the process, but waved Pitman back through on the main straight.
By the time the combatants rounded Sulman Park on the next lap, the leader had appeared behind them.
Karjunen and Schubert made contact after Karjunen hit the exit wall at Sulman Park, and Karjunen proceeded to run wide through McPhillamy Park, where Kuba Palubicki flashed his highbeams in a frantic attempt to get through without losing his small lead over HappyKojot's Ford.
Schubert didn't dare to complete the pass while Karjunen was in the grass behind the curb, causing Palubicki to get stuck behind both of them.
Palubicki squeezed himself past Schubert while coming down the Esses.
The lapped Mercedes of Schubert ended up in the wall after he made contact with the driver side of Palubicki's BMW after leaving inadequate space for the leader, who managed to save the car but now had HappyKojot's Ford glued to his rear bumper.
The consequences of that were predictable, and HappyKojot immediately powered through into the lead on Conrod Straight.
In the battle for third place, Adam Celárek successfully bullied Boby Vakuinof into outbraking himself at The Chase, and took the last step on the podium out of the Bulgarian's hands.
An enormous flash darts out of the exhaust of HappyKojot's Ford in the frantic battle for the lead, with Kuba Palubicki's BMW also applying opposite lock behind him while the pair accelerate out of The Cutting to lap Pitman.
When pitman lifted the throttle heavily on the apex leading into Quarry, Palubicki had to dart to the left ...
... and ended up in the wall. The battle for the win was over: two bad blue flag situations in less than a lap were all it took for Palubicki to go from maintaining a stable but small lead to ending up too far behind to strike back.
Jaroslav Cerny attempted a first attack on Ayrton Titos for 11th place around the outside into Griffins Bend on the penultimate lap, but ran wide and took an entire lap to catch up again.
After overcoming his botched start without getting caught up in any accidents, HappyKojot drove a smart race where he matched the fantastic pace of Kuba Palubicki just outside of striking distance, until the BMW got caught up in two unfortunate blue flag situations. With his second win of the season, HappyKojot took the lead in the drivers championship and put himself into a very good position for the finale on the streets of Adelaide.
Kuba Palubicki was the tragic hero of the race. From Pole Position, the BMW driver led the race uncontested until five minutes before the end of the race, two blue flag situations made everything fall apart and relegated him to second place, which cost him the chance to retake the lead in the drivers championship. Still, that made him the strongest challenger to HappyKojot ahead of the finale.
Adam Celárek completed the podium and separated Boby Vakuinof from what could have been his first podium of the season by less than a handful of car lengths.
Although NeckR888 crossed the line holding 5th place on the road as the best Nissan, the start pileup cost him dearly. Following a 30 second penalty, he ended up in 8th place behind Knechtel, FMG, and Diner. In addition to that, the Team Impul driver was ordered by officials to start the final race of the season from the pit lane behind the rest of the field.
With an impressive late charge, Marc Orós recovered the time that he had lost when he spun out at The Chase, and the championship leader suddenly appeared on the rear bumper of Jaroslav Cerny again late on the final lap in the four-way battle for 10th place.
Following a poor exit from Forrest's Elbow, Orós could only watch in horror as the reigning champion passed his team mate on Conrod Straight.
Ayrton Titos did not accept defeat and launched a counterattack on the brakes against Jaroslav Cerny, who squeezed the Spaniard towards the grass and made contact with Titos, causing the 190E to touch the grass while braking.
Predictably, Titos lost control and skidded into Cerny's BMW. While Marc Orós was able to pass both of them, Jaroslav Cerny crossed the line in 12th place but got demoted to 14th place following a protest that led to a 12 second penalty for this unsafe defensive maneuver.
The drama still continued! In the battle for 17th place, DJMD19 in the green-mirrored Mercedes-Benz 190E of Simruina Racing Team II overtook the BMW of Samu0332 on the final run down Conrod Straight.
After the Spaniard defended the inside on the brakes at The Chase ...
... the Italian accelerated his purple-tailed Side Heart Pepsi can into a gap that did not exist ...
... and spun his Spanish rival off the road.
Although Samu0332 took the checkered flag in 17th place, that move did not go unpunished. Race Control slapped him with a 15 second time penalty that demoted him to 19th place. The beneficiary of this situation was Panagiotis Mazarakis, who passed DJMD19 while he recovered from this spin.

Official Top 5 Results

  1. HappyKojot (Ford Sierra RS500) - 1:00:20.521 - best lap 2:13.242
  2. Kuba Palubicki (BMW M3 Sport Evo) +2.949s - best lap 2:13.351
  3. Adam Celárek (Holden Commodore) +15.528s - best lap 2:13.295
  4. Boby Vakuinof (Alfa Romeo 75 S1) +16.297s - best lap 2:13.719
  5. Valentin Knechtel (Alfa Romeo 75 S1) +39.999s - best lap 2:14.014

Championship After Round 5 of 6

HappyKojot in the Ford takes the lead in the drivers championship and holds a narrow margin of 3 points over Kuba Palubicki who can't afford any missteps at the finale after having missed Round 4 in the harbor of Wellington. If he can deliver a solid race in Adelaide, though, he is in a prime position to grab the drivers title that he had been denied so narrowly last season due to a brake pedal failure during qualifying for the final round. Behind him, however, it's wide open: Marc Orós is just seven points behind Palubicki and holds an advantage of four points over Valentin Knechtel. Attila Diner and Adam Celárek are just four and five points further back and still have realistic podium chances as well.

Drivers Championship, Top 10 after Round 5

  1. HappyKojot (142 points, 2 wins)
  2. Kuba Palubicki (139 points, 1 win)
  3. Marc Orós (132 points, 1 win)
  4. Valentin Knechtel (128 points, 1 win)
  5. Attila Diner (124 points)
  6. Adam Celárek (123 points)
  7. Boby Vakuinof (115 points)
  8. Ayrton Titos (113 points)
  9. Jaroslav Cerny (112 points)
  10. Adam Keefe (99 points)

The round at Mount Panorama Circuit turned out to be an utter disaster for two teams with title ambitions. Simruina Racing Team III had arrived at Mount Panorama leading the teams championship, and with Marc Orós spearheading the drivers championship. But with Orós scoring 16 points less than HappyKojot, and Side Heart Motorsports putting two cars on the podium, the tables have turned.

Jolly Club had arrived at Bathurst holding second place in the teams championship, but only 4th and 5th place in the drivers championship. Knechtel's own goal at turn 1 sabotaged the Alfa Romeo duo's last hopes in the drivers championship and put Side Heart Motorsports into a very comfortable position for the teams title ahead of the finale on the streets of Adelaide.

Teams Championship, Top 3 after Round 5

  1. Side Heart Motorsports (265 points)
  2. Jolly Club (252 points)
  3. Simruina Racing Team III (245 points)
BMW recaptured the lead in the manufacturers championship and holds a narrow margin over Alfa Romeo ahead of the finale. Mercedes-Benz arrived at Mount Panorama leading the constructors championship and departs in 4th place, with HappyKojot spearheading a late charge by Ford.

Next up: the grand finale on the streets of Adelaide. Who will stay level-headed enough to make it through on top? If Bathurst was any indication, it's near-impossible to predict. While Side Heart Motorsports is in a good position, their bad race at Wellington means no second chances are left for them, and the same must be said about the new leader in the drivers championship as he misssed it.

Published on Leave a comment on The Race is on

Standings:
THR Endurance Standings

Info Board (including Spotterguide and a lot of Information):
https://tinyurl.com/Infoboard-6th-THR-Endurance

Follow the Live Coverage here:

YouTube player
YouTube player
YouTube player
YouTube player

Published on Leave a comment on THRs 6th Endurance Race Website – 12 Heures du Mans
6th Endurance Race by THR

Published on Leave a comment on AC WSC Legends + AC Legends GTC 60s v1.3 Release

HERE WE GO!!!!

AC WSC Legends 60s Pack by Team WSC Legends v1.3
AC Legends GTC 60s by team AC Legends v1.3

Published on Leave a comment on

Published on Leave a comment on Schedule for what happens when around our 6th Endurance race – The 12 hours of Le Mans

Published on Leave a comment on Pimax Crystal Super Optical Engines: Clarity vs. Field of View in Real Sim Racing Use

After spending several weeks with the Pimax Crystal Super QLED and publishing my initial review, Pimax followed up with something far more interesting for long-term users: two additional optical engines.

Alongside the original 50 PPD QLED, I received:

  • the 57 PPD optical engine, focused on maximum clarity
  • and the Ultrawide optical engine, designed to push field of view to the limit

Both replace the default optics entirely and fundamentally change how the Crystal Super feels in use. On paper, this looks like a simple specs comparison. In practice, it becomes a very personal choice - especially for sim racers.

Swapping Optical Engines: Surprisingly Easy

Before talking visuals, it’s worth mentioning how easy the hardware side is.

Replacing the optical engines is refreshingly simple:

  1. Remove the face cover
  2. Press two small release buttons
  3. Slide the entire optical engine out
  4. Insert the new one
  5. Put the face cover back in - done

No tools, no risk, no complicated alignment. This matters, because it turns the Crystal Super from a fixed-compromise headset into a modular platform you can adapt to your preferences.

The 57 PPD Optical Engine: Incredible Clarity - With a Catch

On paper, the 57 PPD engine is the holy grail: higher pixel density, sharper imagery, and improved detail reproduction. And yes - the image is noticeably crisper.

However, in my case, that theoretical advantage quickly ran into a real-world problem.

Eye Strain and Cross-Eye Effect

Within a short time, I noticed a cross-eye / eye convergence issue that made extended sessions uncomfortable. I later found similar reports from other testers and early users, so this doesn’t appear to be an isolated case.

Because of this, I wasn’t able to properly evaluate the 57 PPD engine over longer sessions. While the clarity increase is real, it simply wasn’t something I could enjoy for hours at a time.

That alone pushed me toward the Ultrawide option fairly quickly.

Ultrawide Optical Engine: Why Field of View Matters So Much in Sim Racing

Switching to the Ultrawide optical engine immediately changed the experience - not subtly, but fundamentally.

The numbers tell part of the story:

  • Ultrawide FOV: ~140° horizontal
  • Standard / 50 PPD FOV: ~127° horizontal

A 13-degree increase might not sound dramatic on paper. In a racing cockpit, it absolutely is.

Peripheral Vision = Situational Awareness

In sim racing, field of view is not about spectacle — it’s about information.

With a wider FOV:

  • You maintain better awareness of cars alongside you
  • You rely less on artificial mirrors or head movement
  • Speed perception feels more natural and convincing

This is especially noticeable in side-by-side racing, tight chicanes, and fast corner sequences. The track stops feeling like something in front of you - it surrounds you.

Less Head Movement, More Consistency

One of the biggest advantages of Ultrawide FOV in sim racing is reduced head movement.
You don’t need to turn your head as much to check apexes or judge car placement. Over long stints, this directly improves:

  • comfort
  • consistency
  • and fatigue levels

Clarity vs. FOV: When “More” Stops Being Better

There’s an important realization that happens after using multiple high-end VR headsets:

Once clarity reaches a certain level, additional sharpness delivers diminishing returns - especially in motion.

At 50 PPD and above:

  • dashboards are readable
  • braking markers are clear
  • track detail is no longer the limiting factor

At that point, field of view becomes the dominant immersion factor, particularly in racing sims where peripheral vision plays a constant role.

This is why opinions in VR communities are so divided. People aren’t disagreeing about specs — they’re reacting to different immersion breakers.

Ultrawide vs. 57 PPD: The Practical Trade-Off

AspectUltrawide57 PPD
Field of ViewExcellent (≈140°)Limited (≈106°)
Peripheral AwarenessOutstandingModerate
Image SharpnessVery goodExceptional
Stereo OverlapReducedStrong
Long-Session ComfortExcellentProblematic (for me)

For sim racing, the Ultrawide engine clearly plays to the strengths of the genre.

Final Thoughts: Why Ultrawide Would Be My Go-To Choice

The Crystal Super is unique because it doesn’t force a single compromise. It lets you decide what matters most to your experience.

In my case:

  • The 57 PPD engine offered impressive clarity but introduced eye strain I couldn’t ignore
  • The Ultrawide engine immediately enhanced immersion, awareness, and comfort in racing

For sim racers, especially those who value realism, spatial awareness, and endurance comfort, field of view is not a luxury feature - it’s a performance advantage.

Sure, there are other competitors in the market, but I only have direct contact to PIMAX.

THR has direct contat to PIMAX, cause months ago PIMAX asked us for a partnership. We show their logos on our Website and in our streams and they offer us support and an Affiliate Link which gives you a 2% discount and THR receives a small provision per order, which we use to run our servers, etc.

If you are interested in purchasing a new headset, you can use the following affiliate links to receive the 2% discount.

Crystal Light:
https://pimax.com/discount/THRACING?redirect=%2Fproducts%2Fpimax-crystal-light/?ref=THRacing
Crystal Super:
https://pimax.com/discount/THRACING?redirect=%2Fproducts%2Fpimax-crystal-super/?ref=THRacing

Published on Leave a comment on THR – Thank you for 2025

Another year is behind us - and what a year it has been!
In 2025, we successfully completed four championships:

  • F1 75 Championship II
  • US GTC Tour
  • F1 79 Championship
  • 718 Rennsport Trophy

Throughout 2025, our championship framework ran smoothly, and we enjoyed countless fantastic races without technical issues. It’s been a true pleasure to organize these events and watch everyone compete on track.

We also hosted several unforgettable special events. One of the standout moments was the spectacular 6 Heures du Mans – THR’s 5th Endurance Race, where 135 drivers from ten different communities battled for top honors. We were fortunate to have PirateLaserBeam and Akashic delivering excellent English commentary, while Guido, Thomas, and Jascha provided a superb German broadcast.

Another highlight was our 7th Anniversary Celebration Race, featuring a full-length Grand Prix at Spa in classic GPL cars - a truly special occasion for our community.

Community Growth & Milestones

Our community continued to grow impressively throughout the year:

  • Our Discord server is nearing 3,000 members
  • Our YouTube channel has reached 1,000 subscribers
  • More than 570 drivers have registered on our website
  • Our Facebook news is now followed by over 500 users

Looking Forward

Looking ahead, we already have some exciting championships planned for 2026, and our next Endurance Race is scheduled for January 31st.

I’m confident that 2026 will bring even more fun, competition, and memorable racing moments. As the year comes to a close, I want to extend my sincere thanks to all of you. Our community continues to grow, our grids remain full, and it’s inspiring to see members constantly supporting one another with advice and technical help on Discord.

We’ve reached a point where many longtime THR drivers know each other’s racing styles, strengths, and weaknesses - just like in a real-life racing league. Thank you all for being such an essential part of THR.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and successful New Year 2026.

See you on track next year,
pitman and the THR Orga Team

Published on Leave a comment on Casualties in the Concrete Maze of Wellington as Orós takes the Lead in the Championship – 4 Brands in the Top 6

THR TTM 2025 — Round 4, Wellington Street Circuit

To escape the winter in Europe, the second half of the THRacing Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (TTM) 2025 takes place in Oceania. The teams had polished their cars up to send them across the globe following Round 3, only for each and every one of them to immediately get dented and bent in the unforgiving concrete-walled maze that is the street circuit in the harbor of New Zealand's capital Wellington. Time to airfreight a couple of new chassis to Australia ahead of the next round, huh?

Based on the real-world weather forecast on site, the weather was mild with a stiff breeze of 30-43 km/h. Qualifying was held in overcast conditions, and while the warmup of the race saw spots of sun in windy conditions, the cloud cover filled up again ahead of the race, setting the stage for a very dramatic race that was brought to the viewers superbly by Microlin's amazing live commentary. The evening before, our commentator had gained first-hand experience at Wellington when he celebrated his debut in our second-tier touring car championship TCTM with a spectacular Sierra RS500 dressed in a livery based on a VW Golf GTI from the 1989 British Production Saloon Championship.

Round 4 finally ended the streak of three-manufacturer podiums, with both of the Simruina Racing Team III drivers Marc Orós (#45) and Ayrton Titos (#46) sharing the podium with rapid newcomer NeckR888 (#92) in the Nissan Skyline of Team Impul, followed by two Alfa Romeos and a BMW to see four manufacturers in the Top 6. With a grid of only 27 cars, it was the smallest round of the season so far.

Qualifying: Orós Cashes in the ABS and Agility Trump Cards

Doubling down on his strong form that saw him barely missing out on his maiden win after his first pole position at the previous round, Marc Orós made full use of his car's trump cards for Wellington: low weight, instant engine response, and the pioneering Mercedes/Bosch 4-Channel Racing ABS. The Spaniard delivered back-to-back pole positions in the #45 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II of Simruina Racing Team III and achieved a 1:24.263 and a margin of 0.35 seconds at Wellington.

YouTube player

Alongside the Spanish 190E driver was a familiar sight at the front, but only at first glance - because the orange BMW M3 of Linder Rennsport in 2nd place was not that of Kuba Palubicki, who was absent for this round. It was actually the other Linder M3: the #19 piloted by Jacopo Hrynecko, who scored his personal best qualifying result of the season by far after setting a 1:24.623. He outqualified his Czech compatriot Adam Celárek, best of the heavyweights in the #17 Holden Commodore of Side Heart Motorsports, by a quarter second. The second row was completed by Ayrton Titos (#46 Simruina III Mercedes) with a 1:25.013.

Attila Diner in the #27 Jolly Club Alfa Romeo rounded out the Top 5, another two tenths adrift. Jayden HW would have been the top-qualified Nissan if he hadn't withdrawn from the race, which promoted the #16 Holden of Adam Keefe to 6th on the starting grid. The #12 Alfa Romeo of Nat Stevenson and the blue Calsonic Team Impul Nissan of TTM debutant NeckR888 (#92) occupied Row 4, and the Top 10 were completed by Boby Vakuinof's Alfa Romeo (#36) and Alfie Bevan's BMW M3 (#99).

Last round's winner HappyKojot ended up in 16th place, highlighting the huge troubles faced by the Ford crowd at Wellington. Akira scored an acceptable qualifying result with 14th place but most importantly, the Viasa Racing driver (#91) finally lost Lone Wolf status with the debut of a second Audi driven by Daan Vanderstukken (#93) from Belgium, who started in 24th place for BTP Motorsports. Also new on the grid was Panagiotis Mazarakis (#35 BMW M3), who went into his TTM debut from 20th place.

The race

Utter Carnage at the Start

In windy overcast conditions with mild temperatures, sunglasses were unnecessary to witness the standing start from a very tightly-cramped starting grid. It would turn out to be one of the worst first laps in the history of not only the TTM championship but even the THRacing community as a whole.

Only 25 of 27 cars participated in the race after unannounced absences by both Maju (#39) and pitman (#4), the latter of whom didn't make it home in time to start in the race as it later turned out. The winner of the previous round, HappyKojot (#727), immediately lost an entire lap because his wheelbase wasn't recognized by Assetto Corsa anymore.

On track, the first kick in the nuts was received by Valentin Knechtel. With a good start from 12th on the grid, the Jolly Club driver immediately contested 10th place in the middle of a 3-wide with the black and yellow #1 BMW of Jaroslav Cerny on the outside, and the #36 Alfa Romeo of Boby Vakuinof on the inside. In the first curve at the pit exit, Cerny sharply turned into Knechtel's front left wheel, sending the German spinning out in a cloud of smoke where miraculously, he was only hit by the #13 Ford of Florian Masse before resuming the race in 24th place. It was only a calm prelude for what was to come at the curve with the first braking zone: the Northern Hairpin directly after that.

While Knechtel's Alfa Romeo laid a smokescreen over the lower half of the field after Cerny rammed him into a spin, Adam Keefe in the #16 Holden was caught off-guard by the braking point of Ayrton Titos #46 at turn 1, and bumped into the rear of the Spanish Mercedes driver who managed to save the car.

Then it got messy.

That did not last long through, because TTM debutant NeckR888 in the #92 Calsonic Team Impul Skyline hit the Spaniard in the Northern Hairpin, causing him to spin sideways directly in front of Nat Stevenson (#12), Alfie Bevan (#99), and Adam Keefe (#16).
This momentarily caused a 3-wide roadblock that Attila Diner (#27) got around on the outside, but only because Jordi Sumoy (#55) braked to avoid spinning out the German. The three lanes of cars on the inside kept pushing Titos's Mercedes forward while the Spaniard tried to get going.
As soon as Adam Keefe saw a clear track in front of himself, he floored it, but the front left corner of Ayrton Titos's Mercedes caught his Holden's right rear corner while the Spaniard transitioned to rolling tyres again.
That sent the big Holden spinning to the right, deflecting Diner's Alfa Romeo head-on into the guardrail while the Holden spun back to the left and into both the #46 Mercedes and the #1 BMW.
Mauled by the cars behind after rebounding from the guardrail, the Jolly Club Alfa Romeo of Attila Diner flipped over. The BMW of Jaroslav Cerny received plenty of dents, while Ayrton Titos struggled to stay in control of his Mercedes after having been hit by Keefe's Holden. [Photo: Florian Masse]
Nat Stevenson looked like he was going to emerge from the chaos as the best-placed Alfa Romeo driver, but then he decided to go to the left to avoid having to back off behind Ayrton Titos who was skidding towards the right while regaining control over his car. That directly put him into the path of the red BMW driven by Alfie Bevan, who avoided the flipping Alfa of Attila Diner, and it didn't end well for him.
In the Audi of Viasa Racing, Akira emerged from the chaos in 8th place, with Boby Vakuinof in the best-placed Alfa Romeo behind him. Three of the four fastest Alfa Romeos had fallen victim to the first two corners - an utterly catastrophic start of the race for the Italian brand. Nat Stevenson struggled to get his car from Reverse to 1st gear on his BDH H1 Bazooka shifter after the spin, costing him a lot of time and sending him back to far behind the end of the field.
For the first time this season, Jacopo Hrynecko in the #19 Linder Rennsport M3 took the lead. At Town Hall Corner, he was nearly torpedoed by his Czech compatriot Adam Celárek (#17) when the Holden driver had to take the emergency exit after outbraking himself on cold carbon brakes in an attempt to defend 2nd place against the Mercedes of Marc Orós. While the Holden driver resumed the race in 10th place, P3 was inherited by newcomer NeckR888 in the blue Nissan.
For the first time this season, Akira was not the only Audi driver anymore. In the new #93 Audi of BTP Motorsports, Daan Vanderstukken from Belgium got through the early chaos and ran 13th when he turned onto Herd Street on the opening lap.
Also new on the grid: Panagiotis Mazarakis from Greece in the #35 BMW, pictured here going into the Overseas Passenger Terminal Sweeper in 20th position ahead of Christoph Mües. While at Wellington, he used the colours of Alexander Burgstaller's 1992 DTM car, the number 35 BMW will have new colours next time.
Unbelievable views on the start/finish straight at the end of lap 1: the invisible car of the TV client was stuck on the starting grid, where its spawn position was right on the racing line. While leading a TTM race for the first time, the orange Linder BMW of Jacopo Hrynecko crashed into it at full speed, and Marc Orós (#45) was unable to take evasive action and got caught up in the same accident. Huge apologies from the THRacing Organizing Team and the TV crew for this terrible accident.
While the Spanish Mercedes driver was immediately able to get his car going again and only lost two positions, Hrynecko got the short end of the stick. His demolished BMW came to rest facing the opposite direction in the middle of the track. The Czech driver wisely pulled over to the pit wall to minimize the chance of being hit by passing traffic. This sent him back to 23rd place: what a disaster for the Linder Rennsport driver, mere seconds after having led a TTM race for the first time.
Adam Keefe then smacked his Holden into the concrete wall exiting turn 1 and pulled off the track to retire his car. The cloud of smoke in the background was produced by Daan Vanderstukken, who entered the Northern Hairpin with a reverse-entry inertia drift that would have made Gigi Galli proud.
Vanderstukken then bumped into the passenger side of Rolf Biber's #59 Alfa Romeo, while D Weller (#6) bumped the blue Ford of Florian Masse (#13) into a spin. In the background, Christoph Mües (#42 Mercedes) spun towards the hairpin sideways after having been squeezed into the Turn 1 exit wall by Attila Diner (#27 Alfa Romeo).
The situation at the hairpin allowed Valentin Knechtel to get alongside D Weller going through the tight chicane leading onto Jervois Quay. Their first contact saw Knechtel pushed further left than expected, so he backed off a bit and widened his line to avoid the left-hander's apex guardrail.
Their cars made contact again at the 2nd apex of the chicane, sending Weller's BMW sideways.
The result was this roadblock. Only Max Solmyr's Holden got through without a scratch, but the next five drivers drove into either Weller or each other, with Mazarakis's BMW being the luckiest of them. While Attila Diner (#26) and Christoph Mües (#42) managed to get away reasonably quickly as well, this proved to be quite a costly experience for the other three drivers.
D Weller (#6), Florian Masse (#13) and Nico Bonnefon (#25) were still maneuvering to get their cars facing in the right direction when Jacopo Hrynecko (#19) arrived on the scene and barreled into the guardrail while attempting to avoid Bonnefon's BMW.
Only during that roadblock, HappyKojot finally managed to get underway an entire lap behind the last running driver. It was a race to forget for the Polish driver who won the previous round, but he carried on to the checkered flag and salvaged what he could.
The chaotic events on the opening lap paved the way for a sensation. Not only did a rookie end up in the lead on debut, but also a car that had struggled to even get into the Top 10 all season so far. The leading Nissan Skyline 2000 GTS-R was the brandnew #92 entry of Team Impul in the iconic Calsonic livery, piloted by Touge specialist NeckR888 who felt right at home on the tight and bumpy city circuit in the harbor of New Zealand's capital.
Trailing roughly 200 meters behind the leader, a battle train of seven cars embarked on the hunt. Reigning champion Jaroslav Cerny is pictured accelerating out of Town Hall Corner with Marc Orós on his tail. Behind him, another sensation appeared in the shape of Jordi Sumoy in the Side Heart Pepsi BMW #55, holding a season-best 4th place ahead of Ayrton Titos, Boby Vakuinof, Akira, and Adam Celárek. But as the laps went on, the Spanish BMW driver lost position after position.

Lapses Meet Uncompromising Concrete Walls

After Celárek aggressively muscled his way past Akira, Boby Vakuinof, and Ayrton Titos, he was in a position to join the battle for 2nd and aggressively sent the Holden down the inside of Marc Orós the Northern Hairpin on Lap 8 with locking tyres, nearly hitting the 2nd-placed M3 of Jaroslav Cerny.
Orós managed to stay alongside Celárek all the way through the tight chicane that leads onto Jervois Quay.
The Holden outaccelerated the Mercedes as they sped side by side through the dangerous lane change chicane on Jervois Quay, but this situation had proven particularly useful for reigning TTM champion Jaroslav Cerny who gained some valuable breathing room.
Sensationally, the newcomer in the Nissan continued to lead the way. NeckR888 now had a seven second margin over Jaroslav Cerny. It wouldn't take long, through, for both Adam Celárek and Marc Orós to close the gap to Cerny again.
Small mistake with massive consequences: Marc Orós hit the right-hand apex entering the Dunlop Bridge, which sent him into the guardrail of the first left-hand apex at a very steep angle. He lost two positions to his team mate Ayrton Titos and to Boby Vakuinof and resumed the race in 6th place.
The battle for 2nd now really heated up. Jaroslav Cerny is pictured at Town Hall Corner after having defended 2nd place on the brakes around the outside against his Czech compatriot Celárek's Holden.
The battle between the two Czechs escalated into a no-holds-barred brawl, exemplified in this contact when Cerny tried to squeeze Celárek further to the right in the braking zone for the Northern Hairpin.
The collision sent Celárek's Holden into the outside wall and allowed Cerny to open up a few car lengths worth of a gap again.
The duel between the two Czech drivers cost them plenty of time. In this picture from the Northern Hairpin on lap 14, the leading blue Nissan of NeckR888 is already about to turn onto Jervois Quay. Ayrton Titos is pictured gradually catching up to the two combatants on the lower podium positions. Behind him, Boby Vakuinof fired his Alfa Romeo into the outside wall of Turn 1 after colliding with the apex, handing 5th place back to Marc Orós.
One lap later, the two Simruina Racing Team III Mercedes drivers swapped positions, and then the battle for 2nd place boiled over at the exit of the Barnett Street Chicane.
Celárek exited the chicane glued to Cerny's rear bumper and swiftly began to accelerate down the inside of Cerny on the curved straightaway of Toop Walk, immediately establishing an overlap between his front bumper and the rear bumper of Cerny, who wasn't willing to let that happen.
By applying the Precision Immobilization Technique to himself, Cerny unsettled his lightweight BMW using the front bumper of his Czech compatriot's Holden after having squeezed him all the way to the inside guardrail...
... and spun out under the footbridge that spans the Nissan Mobil Chicane, handing 2nd place to Celárek.
Ayrton Titos then crashed into Cerny's BMW at the end of his spin, because the Spanish Mercedes driver had tried to gain time while driving through a cloud of tyre smoke. Naughty.
This crash sent the reigning champion back to 4th place, but Boby Vakuinof promptly relegated him to 5th and proceeded to pull away from him: another crushing blow to Cerny's title defense.
Jaroslav Cerny then got under attack by Alfie Bevan, who in turn was shadowed by the blue Suntory Boss Nissan of FMG. Moments after this picture, the British BMW driver hit the exit apex of Town Hall Corner, allowing Cerny to escape again.
That put him squarely into the sights of not only FMG, but also Attila Diner who had silently fought his way back up to 8th place after having been flipped over and caught up in a roadblock at the start of the race. This trio went on to keep each other busy for multiple laps, allowing another early victim to catch up gradually: Jacopo Hrynecko.
Adam Celárek's joy about second place was short-lived, when he outbraked himself and hit the wall at Town Hall Corner, allowing Marc Orós to get alongside and then outbrake him into the next corner.
After chasing Orós for several laps, Celárek arrived in the Northern Hairpin with opposite lock from a presumably accidental inertia drift, while the Spanish Mercedes driver had taken a very wide entrance.
The Holden driver lit up the rear wheels and drifted into the left rear wheel of Orós's 190E.
That nudged the Mercedes sideways enough for both cars to be side by side in the short straight to the tight chicane that led onto Jervois Quay, and Orós was able to defend the position.
Another lap, another bold move at the Northern Hairpin: Celárek braked straight to the apex and got the car stopped in time, while Orós had taken the usual wide approach for ABS-equipped cars and managed to stay ahead.
And then it all fell apart for the aggressive Holden driver. Just over 7 minutes after the fateful collision with the reigning champion's BMW, Adam Celárek clipped the concrete wall at the apex of the unnamed right-hand curve between Nissan Chicane and the Dunlop Bridge. He crashed hard into the outside wall and spun. Not only did Ayrton Titos pass him for third place, his car had also sustained massive damage to the steering, which prompted an immediate repair stop. In the end, the Holden driver barely recovered into the Top 10 by the time the checkered flag dropped - a huge blow to the title ambitions of the driver who had missed out on the drivers championship by a hair's width last season.

Top 5 Showdown

By lap 32, Jacopo Hrynecko (#19) had arrived behind Attila Diner (#27), FMG (#122), Alfie Bevan (#99) and reigning champion Jaroslav Cerny (#1), forming a 5-way battle for 5th place.
Up front, NeckR888 incredibly still continued to write a fairytale story for Nissan by occupying the lead, but Marc Orós in the #45 Mercedes rapidly melted down his lead. With every lap that passed, the black Mercedes became bigger in Neck's rear view mirror. Behind them, Ayrton Titos and Boby Vakuinof were nowhere to be seen, as Orós's advantage was so large that they hadn't even reached Town Hall Corner yet at the time of this picture from the next braking zone, leading onto Chaffers Street. By the end of the next lap, Orós was glued to the Nissan's rear bumper.
Moments later, Attila Diner successfully executed a bold divebomb against FMG's ABS-enhanced Nissan to capture 7th place at the Town Hall Corner.
The 5-way fight became a 4-way fight when Jacopo Hrynecko then hit the apex wall of the Town Hall Corner's exit, which deflected his BMW hard into the outside wall.
Next up, Alfie Bevan tried to take 5th out of Jaroslav Cerny's hands around the outside at the Northern Hairpin, but the reigning champion prevailed.
At Town Hall Corner, Bevan had to defend his own position against the Alfa Romeo of Attila Diner, who had launched an attack on the outside on Jervois Quay. This picture repeated itself in the next braking zone upon arrival at the junction leading onto Chaffers Street.
After Diner had managed to stay alongside Bevan on Chaffers Street, the two made contact while turning onto Herd Street and were still side by side going into the Overseas Passenger Terminal Sweeper.
Bevan did everything in his power to defend 6th place against Attila Diner but then he overcooked it on the brakes at the Barnett Street Chicane and opened up the steering, sending him into the stack of concrete blocks disguised as tyres.
The impact had shattered his windscreen and suddenly decelerated his car, triggering a spin that saw him get hit twice: first by the Nissan of FMG who continued unharmed, and then by the lapped Mercedes of Christoph Mües, who spun out as a result of the accident that cost Bevan three positions and left him facing the wrong direction.
Attila Diner had escaped Alfie Bevan's demise by a hair's width. Undeterred, he began to attack Jaroslav Cerny with a bold move that saw his Alfa Romeo getting sideways on the brakes around the outside against the ABS-equipped BMW M3 at Town Hall Corner. Even though that allowed him to enter Cable Street alongside the BMW, it wasn't enough to capture the position - for now.
However, it allowed both FMG and Jacopo Hrynecko to close the gap again, forming this four-car train of cars accelerating onto Herd Street.
Following an error by Jaroslav Cerny exiting the Dunlop Bridge, Attila Diner briefly took 5th place on the start/finish straight, but the reigning champion immediately struck back and recaptured the position at the Northern Hairpin.
When Jacopo Hrynecko barged into the side of FMG at Northern Hairpin, he briefly advanced to 7th place but immediately redressed the position to the Nissan driver.
Jaroslav Cerny and Attila Diner accelerated out of Town Hall Corner and onto Cable Street yet again, this time after they lapped the Audi of Daan Vanderstukken following a spin by the Belgian TTM Rookie. Cerny would again manage to defend 5th in the next braking zone.
Another error by Cerny at the exit of the Dunlop Bridge allowed Diner to repeat his attack on the start/finish straight, and this time he was determined to make it stick: the Jolly Club driver kept the inside covered at the Northern Hairpin and gracefully rotated the car while locking up the inside front tyre. At last, the Alfa Romeo driver had cracked the reigning champion and advanced to 5th.
Drama up front: when BMW backmarker Nico Bonnefon (#25) hit the concrete wall at the exist of the Barnett Street Chicane after ignoring blue flags for a bit, the leader inevitably bumped into the back of him. However, NeckR888 then immediately got a push from behind when Marc Orós rear-ended him, allowing the Nissan driver to pass the lapped BMW on Toop Walk. Bonnefon decided to stay ahead of the Spanish Mercedes until the start/finish straight, opening a two second gap between the leaders that Orós managed to recover again.
While they managed to lap the Alfa Romeo of Rolf Biber swiftly, the next lapped car caused quite a few headaches. Samu0332 in the #56 BMW of Side Heart Pepsi ignored blue flags and defended against the leaders for an entire lap, even leading to contact between them at one point.
Side by side for the lead with just over two laps to go: NeckR888 defended the inside against Marc Orós going into the Overseas Passenger Terminal Sweeper.
No prisoners were taken by Neck when he encountered Nico Bonnefon yet again at the Northern Hairpin. The Nissan driver sent his car down the inside and barged his way past the lapped BMW. That allowed Marc Orós to not only get past the French BMW backmarker as well, but even attack the Nissan by getting alongside.
Having braked late for the tight chicane that takes drivers onto Jervois Quay, Neck got sideways at the exit and Marc Orós partially managed to get alongside.
In the flat-out chicane to switch to the other side of Jervois Quay, the front bumper of Marc Orós still overlapped the rear bumper of NeckR888, who would have had to provide sufficient room for survival to Orós. However, he did not turn far enough to the right after the first guardrail had ended.
As a result, contact occurred between their cars, sending Marc Orós into the start of the second apex's guardrail nearly head-on. The Nissan driver continued without redressing the position. Following a protest, Race Control awarded a 20 second time penalty and two licence points to NeckR888 for causing a collision through an unsafe defensive maneuver.
Marc Orós was lucky to be able to continue after the accident, and carried the car around the track for the remaining 1.5 laps with suspension damage.
NeckR888 tainted a sensation on the penultimate lap. Although he crossed the line first, the post-race time penalty of 20 seconds demoted him to third place.
Marc Orós had overcome several setbacks and fightbacks by the time he attacked NeckR888 on the penultimate lap, and had to carry his severely damaged car across the line afterwards. Although he inherited first place as a result of the penalty against NeckR888, his maiden TTM win is fully deserved.
When his team mate proved to be faster, Ayrton Titos perfected the role of the water carrier and secured a double podium for Simruina Racing Team III. Although he crossed the line in 3rd place, the time penalty against NeckR888 promoted him to 2nd place - a key result for the Spaniards in the fight for the Team Championship.
Although Boby Vakuinof managed to defend 4th place on the final lap, Attila Diner's long fight back into the Top 5 deserves a honourable mention. Behind the two Alfa Romeos, the top 10 were completed by Jaroslav Cerny, FMG, Jacopo Hrynecko, Alfie Bevan, and Adam Celárek.

BMW finally had a strong presence in the Top 10, but the three aces of the Bavarians did not end up in the planned upper half. Mercedes only got two cars into the Top 10 but put them on top of the podium. Alfa Romeo recovered from a catastrophic start that eliminated three of their fastest four drivers to bring two cars into the Top 5. For the first time ever, Nissan brought two cars into the Top 10. Holden had a huge match ball at Wellington but fumbled, barely bringing one car into the tail end of the Top 10.

For Ford, the race was an utter disaster from the start. Not only did their cars not work well at this track, the championship leader did not even make it out of the pits for the first 1.5 laps of the race. With the best Ford in 13th place, it was a race to forget for the Blue Oval. Audi started strong but dropped off even harder - after the opening lap, they had one car in the Top 10 and the other in the Top 15. After losing their best car to driver errors and technical gremlins, their rookie only salvaged 21st place, two laps behind the winner.

Official Top 5 Results

  1. Marc Orós (Mercedes 190E Evo II) — 42 laps — best 01:26.032
  2. Ayrton Titos (Mercedes 190E Evo II) — +3.1s — best 01:26.859
  3. NeckR888 (Nissan Skyline 2000 GTS-R) — +9.5s — best 01:26.623 
  4. Boby Vakuinof (Alfa Romeo 75 S1) — +11.4s — best 01:26.670
  5. Attila Diner (Alfa Romeo 75 S1) — +11.5s — best 01:25.779

What it means for the championship

The season uses the familiar 40‑37‑34‑31‑30‑29… points system with one drop result per driver in the drivers and teams championships, but not for the manufacturer championship that only mirrors the points achieved by each brand's top scorer of the race:

  1. #45 Marc Orós (108 points)
  2. #727 HappyKojot (102 points)
  3. #20 Kuba Palubicki (102 points)
  4. #26 Valentin Knechtel (98 points)
  5. #27 Attila Diner (96 points)
  6. #1 Jaroslav Cerny (91 points)
  7. #46 Ayrton Titos (90 points)
  8. #17 Adam Celárek (89 points)
  9. #36 Boby Vakuinof (84 points)
  10. #16 Adam Keefe (73 points)

In the teams championship, Simruina Racing Team III took the lead with 198 points, followed closely by Jolly Club (194) and Side Heart Motorsports (191). Asahi Motorsport (164) and Linder Rennsport (162) complete the Top 5 but they trail the top 3 by almost 30 points.

The manufacturers championship after Round 4 has a new leader in Mercedes-Benz, but both Alfa Romeo and BMW remain hot on their heels. Holden and Ford suffer the fallout of their dismal outings in Wellington, allowing the top 3 to open up a gap of more than 10 points.

The concrete-wall-lined city circuit in the harbor of New Zealand's capital proved to be a meat grinder - but unlike the Guia Circuit in Macau, it provided multiple passing opportunities and plenty of intense action. For the teams, however, it was an expensive affair, with half of the participating teams having to rebuild their cars on new chassis ahead of the next round on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst. FMG proved the value of doing one's best to stay out of trouble by advancing 9 places, while Jacopo Hrynecko and Adam Celárek can't be happy about finishing 6 and 7 places behind their respective qualifying results. The strongest recovery drive by far was delivered by Attila Diner, who incredibly regained nearly 20 positions after having been flipped over and finished in 5th place, directly behind the rear bumper of the 4th-placed driver.

Adam Keefe and Adam Celárek threw away match balls for Holden. Akira had a strong start for Audi but ended up retiring from the race after his wheelbase disconnected from the PC. Nat Stevenson was caught up in a pileup and ended up retiring from the race due to his struggles with his shifter.

Next up: Mount Panorama Circuit: the spiritual home of motorsport in Australia will be hotly-contested, blending iconic straights with uncompromising concrete walls over top of the mountain. Who will remain level headed enough to conquer the mountain and their competitors?