Basford and My3id bi-winning in Apex Cup

By Niall McEvoy | Mar 14, 2011 21:53 UTC | 357 Views

After 2 rounds it is Jack Basford leading the way in the Apex Cup with My3id Gaming also leading the teams standings.

We fielded two teams for the Apex Cup. My3id Gaming consisted of Jack Basford and Niki Ðaković, while My3id Gaming 2 was made up of Jarno Lehikoinen and Piotr Goik.

Round 1 saw mixed results for us as Basford was the only driver who was able to muster up a good challenge for top points. The Englishman was able to qualify in 3rd position a mere .13 seconds behind Nogiec from CoRe Racing. Lehikoinen, Ðaković and Goik only managed 15th, 16th and 24th respectively.

The sprint race of 8 laps showed very clean and action packed racing at a high level. Only a few incidents occured in the back of the field. Nogieć who was starting from pole position had a good start and was able to drive a fast and consistent pace, which brought him a relatively easy win in the sprint race. Jonaitis was driving in second place until his front tires started to overheat, because of this Basford and Wentjärvi were able to pass him in the last two laps. Jonaitis finished 4th in the end while Basford took 2nd and Wentjärvi took the last spot on the podium. Ðaković managed 12th place with Goik 19th. Lehikoinen suffered an accident early on in the race causing him to retire.

The feature race was once again a struggle for our drivers. Both Lehikoinen and Ðaković had accidents early on and were forced to retire. This left Jack Basford at the top of the field flying the flag for My3id Gaming. He decided to go for a long first stint where he managed his tyres brilliantly and was in with a chance for a podium having started in 9th. An uneventful race for Basford for most of the race, it heated up once the pitstops evened the field out. Gaining on the leaders from 4th place, he unfortunately collided with ineX's Iivonen at turn one and lost a few positions. He finished 7th. Cattel and Holmes made it a 1 - 2 for ineX with an impressive Nogiec taking the final podium spot.

In the drivers championship it was T.Nogieć who was leading with a 7 points margin over S.Cattell after round 1. ineX Racing lead the teams championship with CoRe Racing and My3id Gaming behind them.

"This round was really damage limitation for me. The day before the race I got a good setup which finally made the FXO feel like a car and not an oil tanker. This allowed me to run at the front and collect a nice points haul from this round.

The feature race should have been better, it was possible to finish as high as 3rd, but unfortunately it was decided by a series of unnecessary incidents in the final laps. Overall I'm pleased with this round though and have some points in the bag going forward." - Jack Basford

"I've expected fxos to be in front in qualifying, but not with such a margin. With momo I can't real feel those smallest changes that which occur so much in second sector. What can man do from 16th? Perhaps shoot for top 10 for reverse grid, but highly unlikely to happen.
So there I am in 12th for the featuring race and I figure early stop would help to get some clear track and yea it did, but the gap of 3 seconds to fxos still stayed there. That would have been two points in there wasn't for disconnect..." - Niki Ðaković

Round 1 results

Round 2 fared much better for both My3id Gaming teams. However, it was Nogieć from CoRe Racing who took the pole position in his second flying lap with a time of 2:17.81. Lehikoinen from My3id Gaming 2 was the only one that also managed to get into the 17's, with a time of 2:17.90. Behind him it was Basford and Ðaković from My3id Gaming who took the third and fourth place on the starting grid. Goik completed the top 5 with a time of 2:18.34. Unfortunately for Goik, he would recieve a DT for missing the skin deadline.

Basford and Lehikoinen were able to capitalise on Nogieć who ran wide in turn 9 which gave them the opportunity to pass him a corner later. The positions didn't change after this which meant that Lehikoinen took the checkered flag followed by Basford and Nogieć. J.Holmes from ineX Racing finished fourth after passing both Ðaković and Goik who lost time while battling on the track.

The first lap of the feature race was very intense with lots of close racing. In the second lap of the race Nogieć placed an attack on the inside ofLehikoinen, which unfortunately ended in a collission. They both lost a few positions and suffered damage from the incident, which madeLehikoinen retire from the race a lap later. In the meantime it was Basford that took the lead after passing multiple cars. Ðaković was driving in second after he overtook Villa in lap 9. Leu pitted in lap 12 to get a clean track in front of him. It seemed to pay off when he came into 3rd position on lap 21 when other drivers had to make their mandatory pit-stops. After an intense race it was team My3id Gaming that took a double with Basford winning the race and Ðaković in second. Leu took the 3rd position closely followed by Goik, who drove a great race starting from 23rd. Holmes completed the top 5 taking the fifth position.

"For this race I built my race/quali setup during qualifying! I had prepared last week using a different setup but heard I was about a tenth or two down the night before and had an idea of how to find it. With each edit my times steadily improved and I was confident I had my best setup going in to the race.

I didn't give Jarno any hassle on the first lap of the sprint race, quite sure he would race Tomek. When this happened we both got through, but ultimately I didn't have an answer for his speed and came second. In the feature race I came under a lot of pressure from Jarno and Tomek at the start, but managed to hold them off. The rest of the race was about consistency. I would have changed one thing in hindsight though and pitted earlier for new tyres. It turns out worn tyres just weren't working for me on this car and as soon as they were changed I drove my best lap. I'm very pleased with a win though as this spices up both championships." - Jack Basford

"This was much better than round 1. I'm very happy with my qualifying result. Sprint race went a bit downhill with not the best lunch of the line and some bad luck with Piotr, but I managed 6th.

Featuring race was the one where the fun was. After a lot of close racing Jack and myself emerged 1-2. I'm looking forward to next round and a fairly new challenge of handling LX4." - Niki Ðaković

Round 2 results

Basford takes over the championship lead after scoring 32 points this round and the DNF of Nogieć, who's now 9 points behind him. Holmes takes the 3rd spot with a total of 35 points. My3id Gaming is now leading the team championship with ineX Racing and CoRe Racing behind them.

Driver standings
Team Standings

Thanks to Apex Cup for letting us use parts of their articles.