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Auer had closed the hole to his BMW rival to simply two factors with victory in Saturday’s opening race, however this left him with 25kg of extra weight on his automobile for the all-important finale.
Beginning eleventh on the grid after a crimson flag in qualifying prevented him from setting a flying lap on new tyres, Auer may solely rise as excessive as seventh in his Winward Mercedes AMG GT3, with a separate 5kg weight improve underneath Steadiness of Efficiency solely making his life extra depressing.
Whereas BMW obtained a BoP hit of its personal through a lower in turbo increase strain and van der Linde additionally needed to deal with 15kg of success ballast, the South African was in a position to climb from fifth to 3rd to clinch his maiden title by 11 factors.
Talking after his slender championship defeat, Auer felt there was little he may do to overtake van der Linde’s factors lead as he struggled to derive efficiency out of his heavily-ballasted automobile.
“The group did an incredible job however immediately we did not have the tempo, by no means,” the Austrian instructed reporters together with Motorsport.com. “With the efficiency weight we had no possibilities.
“I used to be so sluggish that even typically it was critically [close] that somebody would crash into me whereas I am racing as a result of I needed to brake a lot earlier. So it was actually a troublesome race.”
Championship podium: Champion Sheldon van der Linde, Schubert Motorsport, second place Lucas Auer, Mercedes-AMG Workforce WINWARD, third place Rene Rast, Workforce ABT Sportsline, Thorsten Schubert, Workforce principal Schubert Motorsport
Photograph by: Alexander Trienitz
A lot of the drivers together with title contenders Auer and van der Linde didn’t get an opportunity to indicate their true one-lap tempo in qualifying after the session was reduce brief with two minutes and 25 seconds left on the clock attributable to a crash for Crimson Bull’s Felipe Fraga.
Whereas van der Linde’s banker lap on previous tyres was adequate for sixth, which turned fifth after a penalty for Rosberg Audi’s Nico Muller, Auer was pressured to begin the race from eleventh on the grid.
The success ballast doesn’t apply in qualifying, which implies Auer would have lined up a lot larger on the grid if it had not been red-flagged to permit for barrier repairs.
Requested how the race would have panned out had he had began inside the highest 5, Auer stated: “No less than I may have made every little thing rather a lot tougher for Sheldon, after all, as a result of if he wished to move me it could have been fairly robust.
“This was a disgrace. Not the second place, this was nonetheless an amazing season, however I might have liked the possibility to make the pole simply to have a correct struggle, which wasn’t doable with the efficiency we had. We had no possibilities, simply no velocity.”
Second-place nonetheless marked Auer’s finest championship end in a season, having beforehand completed as excessive as sixth in 2017 as a part of the manufacturing facility Mercedes line-up.
Whereas upset to overlook out on a maiden title, Auer felt he and his Winward group could be happy with the consistency they confirmed all via the season.
“In 2017-18 we have been additionally someplace there [in the title fight], it simply by no means labored out,” he stated. “This was one other yr, one other optimistic yr.
“Very constant I feel when it comes to getting the factors. [With] the consistency we have been most likely the very best ones, however we have been simply not typically sufficient to have the quickest automobile on observe. However not a nasty season.”
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