2014 Bahrain Sport Series

**2014 Bahrain Sport Series**
Race details
Round 1 of 10 in the 2014 World Sport Series season

Date	April 2nd, 2014
Official name	2014 Bahrain Sport Series
Location	Bahrain International Circuit Sakhir, Bahrain
Course	Road Course 3.363 mi / 5.412 km
Distance	12 x2 laps
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Ruud Heesterbeek	Edonis Engineering
Time	1:59.963
Fastest Lap One
Driver	Jesper Taulborg	Smile Power Racing
Time	1:59.453
Podium One
First	Chris Butcher	Aurora Motorsports
Second	Ruud Heesterbeek	Edonis Engineering
Third	Jesper Taulborg	Smile Power Racing
Fastest Lap Two
Driver	David Jundt	Smile Power Racing
Time	2:00.059
Podium Two
First	David Jundt	Smile Power Racing
Second	Jordan Weekes	Torrent Motorsports
Third	Tom Parker	Midnight Motorsports

The 2014 Bahrain Sports Series was a World Sport Series simulation race that was held on 2nd April 2014 in Sakhir. The round was contested over two races of 13 laps each at the Bahrain International Circuit and was the first round of the 2014 World Sport Series season. It marked the debut of the EnduRacers Flat6 vehicle as the series vehicle in place of the PCC which had been raced since the birth of the series in 2012. It was the debut of the Bahrain Sport Series on the World Sport Series calender and was also notable as being the third different opening round of the season in the three years of the series.

The races were won by Chris Butcher of Aurora Motorsports and David Jundt of Smile Power Racing; the first time since 2012 where a new team to the series had won a race. Butcher joined Aurora and Smile in the honour of winning on his debut with Jundt being the odd one out after taking part in the majority of the 2012 World Sport Series season. His win in Race 2, however, was his first win; his previous highest result being 5th in the 2012 Canadian Sport Series.

Report

Background

Only two of the forty-strong field were not present entering the first qualification session of the year. Ice Cold Racing were unable to find a suitable replacement for Eric Stranne so therefore only fielded Fran Lopez in the #15 car whilst Racing Team Schroten also only fielded one car in the absence of William Tringas.

Qualifying

The fifteen minute session saw the biggest attendance of qualifying for an event in the series history. With the top twenty drivers covered by 1.7 seconds also, it proved to be one of the closest too. Pole position was eventually taken by Edonis Engineering's Ruud Heesterbeek on both his and his team's debut in the World Sport Series with only the three drivers behind him (Chris Butcher, Jesper Taulborg and Jordan Weekes) getting with five tenths of the Dutchman. 2013 World Sport Series season's Team's Champions Midnight Motorsport endured an average and disappointing start to the new campaign. Alex Cooper, 2nd in the 2013 Drivers' Championship, only qualified P13 with team mate and 3rd last year, Tom Parker, not doing much better in P11 meaning that it was the first time since the series' beginning that neither Midnight car had qualified within the top ten. For returning 2012 Teams' Champions Torrent Motorsports (following a year out), things looked better with newly signed driver Weekes and team mate Petter Kaasa qualifying P4 and P6.

Races

The 2014 World Sport Series is go.

Race One saw a dramatic start to proceedings as an early engine blowout from Edonis Engineering's Sven de Vries saw the American spiral out of control causing a massive pileup on the straight as well as leading into a further incident down at Turn 1. Despite almost half the field being involved in some way, only the retirements of Menno Klont (who also suffered an engine failure) and Lewis Polden came of the two incidents alongside the innocent De Vries.

Chris Butcher and Jordan Weekes were the big winners from the start as both had jumped pole sitter Ruud Heesterbeek by Turn 1. Over the course of the race however, the Torrent driver was unable to hold up to the pace of the true front runners and began to fall back. Half way through the race, Jonathon Provost ensured that both SGP cars would not be at the finish as he retired after sustaining too much damage to his car, therefore suffering the same fate as Wauters Automotive's Benediktas Sinkevicius who was the final retirement of Race 1.

Butcher dominated the race from start to finish with Heesterbeek behind unable to make a push without the Englishman ahead responding. The gap wasn't safe at the end by any means though as the Aurora driver crossed the line 3.575 seconds ahead of his race rival. He also became the third debutant in three consecutive years of WSS to win in his first race in the series. Jesper Taulborg came home 3rd on his debut in the series making the podium a lock out for new drivers with the first returning finisher being Jordan Weekes in 4th. Kyle Williams for the evolution of Milk Racing, Motorsport Safety Foundation, was selected to start on pole position in the first reverse grid of 2014.

Butcher on his way to becoming the first winner of 2014.

Race One winner Butcher fighting his way through the field in Race 2.

Another first in World Sport Series history occurred in the warm-up for Race 2 as the top five finishers of Race 1 were given weight penalties to take into Race 2; Butcher carrying the maximum 45kg with 5th placed Agustin Canapino carrying 9kg. Off the line in Race 2, Cosmo Autosport's Cameron Brewster made a great start into the lead by Turn 1 followed closely by Riku Sarpila leaving Williams to go wide and plummet down the order. Race 1 pole sitter and podium placed Heesterbeek also suffered a disastrous start coming across an incident which saw him retire from the race. Other drivers would not go unharmed however as Lusitania's Pedro Gomes and Enterprise GP's Canapino both retired a lap later with similar damage related issues. On Lap 3, Smile Power Racing's David Jundt made the decisive move for the lead down into Turn 1 heading home to win the race with relative ease. The retirement list unfortunately kept growing however with Ilija Brekalo's engine blowing up and collecting the un-sighted Oskari Kantonen who was forced to retire with too much damage. Ben Horrill and a bitterly disappointed Alex Cooper would join the 'body count' along with Lithuanian, Sinkevicius, who was not happy to retire twice in one round.

Jundt would cruise to a victory margin of 9.647 seconds ahead of Jordan Weekes who had a very impressive overall showing for his new team. Parker too enjoyed a good day finishing on the podium and giving the defending Teams' champions, Midnight, something to cheer about. Early leader Brewster finished a hugely impressive 4th whilst Race 1 winner Butcher also defied his penalty weight to finish a solid 6th.

Jundt overtaking Brewster on the way to his first win of the season.

Post-Races

Race 1 came under a lot of scrutiny for driving standards as well as to find out the route cause of the start pileups (these were later deemed to be purely an accident). 4th placed Jordan Weekes, Rob Mason, Paul Joseph and Bart De Vos all received time penalties for avoidable contact whilst Aurora's Gary Lennon received a similar penalty for an unsafe rejoin. Race 2 was more tame though still saw Mike Bell fall foul to a time penalty for avoidable contact whilst Pedro Gomes became the first driver of the season to receive a ten-place grid penalty due to initiating the incident which led to the retirement of both himself and Agustin Canapino.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Lap	Gap
1	32	Ruud Heesterbeek	Edonis Engineering	1:59.963	—
2	24	Chris Butcher	Aurora Motorsports	2:00.127	+0.164
3	21	Jesper Taulborg	Smile Power Racing	2:00.181	+0.218
4	17	Jordan Weekes	Torrent Motorsports	2:00.317	+0.354
5	33	Sven de Vries	Edonis Engineering	2:00.477	+0.514
6	16	Petter Kaasa	Torrent Motorsports	2:00.529	+0.566
7	7	Matthew Allington	Enterprise GP	2:00.670	+0.707
8	8	Agustin Canapino	Enterprise GP	2:00.780	+0.817
9	35	Mike Bell	Measuric Racing	2:00.786	+0.823
10	27	Ryan Walker	Wauters Automotive	2:00.915	+0.952

Note: Only the top ten qualifiers are covered on this page. If you wish to view the full results click [[1]].

Race 1

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	24	Chris Butcher	Aurora Motorsports	12	24:03.987	2	25
2	32	Ruud Heesterbeek	Edonis Engineering	12	+3.675	1	20
3	21	Jesper Taulborg	Smile Power Racing	12	+5.441	3	16
4	8	Agustin Canapino	Enterprise GP	12	+12.946	8	13
5	2	Tom Parker	Midnight Motorsport	12	+13.350	11	11
6	16	Petter Kaasa	Torrent Motorsports	12	+14.202	6	10
7	20	David Jundt	Smile Power Racing	12	+17.128	16	9
8	17	Jordan Weekes¹	Torrent Motorsports	12	+26.966	4	8
9	7	Matthew Allington	Enterprise GP	12	+27.469	7	7
10	15	Fran Lopez	Ice Cold Racing	12	+30.821	14	6
11	27	Ryan Walker	Wauters Automotive	12	+31.596	10	5
12	18	Ilija Brekalo	Triple Twenty	12	+37.135	20	4
13	39	Cameron Brewster	Cosmo Autosport	12	+38.574	29	3
14	34	Riku Sarpila	Measuric Racing	12	+40.234	15	2
15	28	Kyle Williams	Motorsport Safety Foundation	12	+41.221	35	1
16	5	Simon Melhuish	Motorsport Safety Foundation	12	+46.535	37	0
17	0	Alex Cooper	Midnight Motorsport	12	+48.514	13	0
18	41	Victor Silva	Lusitania Racing Team	12	+48.765	20	0
19	19	Bart De Vos²	Triple Twenty	12	+59.579	12	0
20	38	Rob Mason³	Cosmo Autosport	12	+62.178	27	0

^† Driver retired from the race, but completed more than 75% distance and so remained as a classified finisher.

¹ Jordan Weekes initially finished 4th however fell to 8th following a twenty second time penalty.
² Bart De Vos did finish just inside the points in 14th however was stripped of his points following his own time penalty.
³ Though Rob Mason didn't score points, he did still finish 17th though was pushed back to 20th following a time penalty due to avoidable contact.

Note: Only the top twenty drivers are covered on this page. If you wish to view the full results click [[2]].
Note: The driver in BOLD was the driver who received the reverse grid pole position for Race 2

Race 2

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Weight (kg)	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	20	David Jundt	Smile Power Racing	0	12	24:13.028	9	25
2	17	Jordan Weekes	Torrent Motorsports	18	12	+9.647	13	20
3	2	Tom Parker	Midnight Motorsport	0	12	+9.944	11	16
4	39	Cameron Brewster	Cosmo Autosport	0	12	+11.823	4	13
5	27	Ryan Walker	Wauters Automotive	0	12	+13.992	6	11
6	24	Chris Butcher	Aurora Motorsports	45	12	+14.863	16	10
7	15	Fran Lopez	Ice Cold Racing	0	12	+15.518	7	9
8	33	Sven de Vries	Edonis Engineering	0	12	+16.246	37	8
9	28	Kyle Williams	Motorsport Safety Foundation	0	12	+18.747	1	7
10	21	Jesper Taulborg	Smile Power Racing	27	12	+18.787	14	6
11	16	Petter Kaasa	Torrent Motorsports	0	12	+22.823	10	5
12	6	Roy Schroten	Woods Racing	0	12	+27.524	33	4
13	7	Matthew Allington	Enterprise GP	0	12	+27.741	8	3
14	38	Rob Mason	Cosmo Autosport	0	12	+29.352	17	2
15	3	Paul Watkins	TWR	0	12	+30.447	24	1