NEC: Series Nurburgring summary

Ludwig Ghidi wins the Northern European Cup at the Nuerburgring

Although the victories of the VLN weekend at the Nuerburgring belonged to Daniel de Jong and Kevin Mirocha, it was Ludwig Ghidi who got the result everyone longed for. The young Belgian did what he needed to do, which was getting his car safely past the finish line and bringing home the Northern European Cup 2010.

The 21 Formula Renaults had to deal with extreme weather circumstances during this last event at the German Nuerburgring. Low temperatures, heavy rain and fog played a major part in the course of the event, causing a two- hour delay for free practice on Friday morning the 15th of October. After track activities were resumed, the free practise was installed just before qualifying, in order for the young drivers to get to know the Ring with the so-called Kurzanbindung.

MP Motorsport showed their speed during qualifying, putting Daniel de Jong on pole in 1 min 40.382 for the first race of the weekend. Kevin Mirocha for SL Formula joined him in first row. Both experienced drivers had a great start, but were surprised by Mikkel Mac who left no time to waste in his efforts to attack for the championship. The Dane took first position in the first lap, but had to give up his lead to Daniel de Jong and Karl Oscar Liiv who had found a faster pace.

Meanwhile, Ghidi was playing his cards right in the back of the field. With the severe weather on track, he took no risk and let the much faster Jeroen Mul for Van Amersfoort Racing pass. After the chequered flag De Jong had won, but Mac and Mul took more points than Ghidi, decreasing the individual differences in the standings of the championship. The 2000 standings also saw some shifts among drivers; Tony Kowalewski won the race and got by Frank Suntjens for fourth place in the championship. Johann Ledermair got second and moved to that same position in the standings, at cost of Daniel Schilling.

The second race started off quite problematically for Dutchman Frank Suntjens, who spun off track in the formation lap and was unable to rejoin the field. In front, Kevin Mirocha left from pole position with a very quick start. For a moment, it seemed like the second race would be a repetition of the first, with the two yellow MP cars on course to podium. However, both EUROCUP drivers made a mistake and resumed their race from 6th and 7th position, leaving the second place to Mikkel Mac.

Kevin Mirocha made no mistakes, won and even lapped some of his competitors twice, followed by Mikkel Mac and French Come Ledogar. Newcomer Leopold Ringbom put down a very strong performance in the 2000 series. The Fin did not have the same amount of experience as the other drivers but managed to win the 2000 series under these winter-like conditions in Germany. Johann Ledermair joined him to podium in second place, Kowalewski in third, which strengthened their positions in the overall standings thus far.

The third race of the Formula Renault 2.0 was planned for the Saturday afternoon at 16.30. Unfortunately, the weather circumstances had deteriorated during the day, which had already caused the VLN endurance race to be stopped. Race control gathered a meeting and determined it was unsafe for the formula cars to go out on track.

The decision by the race directors had the championship decided with the standings after 19 races: Ludwig Ghidi wins the Northern European Cup with 381 points, followed by Mikkel Mac (340) and Jeroen Mul (304). Dear Schilling wins the 2000 series with 371 points, just 15 points ahead of Johann Ledermair with 356. Twin brother Daniel becomes third after some very rough last rounds of the championship.

-source: nec