Fischer, Pedersen win NEC Round 3

Sunday’s win was the organization’s first of 2022 and the first since October last year when Marton Tihanyi won the NEC season finale in GT4 class, piloting a Porsche Cayman GT4.

The win also was the first for drivers duo Benjamin Fischer and Niclas Pedersen, who are running the full iRacing Nürburgring Endurance Championship schedule this year, excluding those races that clash with the VSCA SportsCar Championship, like the season-opener in March.

Sunday’s Round 3 was the team’s second start in the NEC this year and by that also only the second race ever fielding the all-new Porsche 992 GT3 Cup.

Benjamin Fischer qualified the No. 84 car in third position in Qualifying and followed up on that by a strong start, moving into second place when the outside pole sitter spun on their own.

On lap two, Fischer had to surrender a couple of positions, as the Leipzig, Germany driver didn’t quite have the pace to keep up with the lead pack. However, only a few laps later the front of the field started to thin out as other drivers started making mistakes, crashing their cars into the barriers.

Fischer, meanwhile, kept the car clean and completed his first stint without issue. The 38-year old took on four fresh tires and a full tank of fuel and went back out on the track in fifth position, but soon discovered that the team’s strategy was a step ahead of the competition on this day, moving him all the way into the lead by the time he started his in-lap before his second and final pit stop.

However, sensors picked up a warning in the Fischer Motorsport machine, warning Fischer that the left front tire was having an issue and was at risk of blowing up on the final lap of his double stint.

Fischer, a 20+ year sim racing veteran, kept a cool head and surrendered the lead quickly, to focus on minimizing the stress on the left front of the car on his in-lap. It paid off, as the German was able to return the car safely to pit road, losing only about six seconds to the leaders.

The pit crew later found out, that the left front tire was indeed running very low on tire thread and was at risk of shredding the car at any given moment. But instead, it was not Pedersen taking over from Fischer, dealing with only slight front end damage.

Pedersen struggled with the high track temperatures and hot summer weather at first, but steadily improved pace. The top two runners ran on a different pit strategy than the Fischer Motorsport entry and when Pedersen made his final pit stop with about 45 minutes remaining, the team completed a fast repair and sent the Aarhus, Denmark native back out on the track with enough fuel to make it to the end.

When Pedersen rejoined the track, second place was directly in front of him, after having taken no tires on their previous pit stop. The class leader was about five seconds away, on two laps older tires.

The “Danish Dynamo” as team members have started to nickname Pedersen, put it in extra drive the following laps, re-passing P2 to take second place and then closing the gap and eventually passing the leader with under 30 minutes remaining in the race.

After the other competitors ended up running into driver error related incidents late in the race, Pedersen had to overcome one final busy lap with lots of slower class traffic and a close call with a Mazda MX-5 Cup at Flugplatz, to bring home the team’s first NEC victory of the season.

“Everything clicked today. I wasn’t expecting a win today, I’ll be honest. We knew from practice, that the car felt better than last race. And besides, we just felt overall more comfortable, understanding the car better than in the last race.”, Fischer said.

“But to come here and win today – that is special, man. We did not expect this. Kudos to Porsche for providing us with amazing race cars and to iRacing for organizing this race and championship.”, team manager Benjamin Fischer said.

Upon exiting the car on pit lane after the race, Pedersen added: “That last lap was insane. I died about a thousand deaths on that final lap. There was a super close call at Flugplatz with a Mazda. I think he didn’t see me, so we almost touched as I was on his inside. I’m glad we were able to bring it home. It was a tough race, nothing given, everything earned. But that’s how we like it.”

The iRacing Nurburgring Endurance Championship now takes a month-long break before returning to action on July 3rd for NEC Round 4.

© 2022 Fischer Motorsport Official Race Results - 2022 iRacing NEC Round 3, Split 2