Spike Goddard showed promise despite suffering from a disappointing qualifying session as the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland series headed to the Netherlands.
The weekend would start badly with Goddard struggling to find pace in the opening one-hour practice session, finishing in eighteenth place, 2.1 seconds behind the fastest time of Philipp Eng. Following the session the MRS-Team mechanics found that the Porsche was suffering from a broken damper in the left front suspension.
With the issues fixed, Goddard headed in to qualifying with renewed hopes, unfortunately the frustration would continue with traffic and yellow flags limiting a clear lap when the tyres were at their best. Despite his best efforts and an improvement on his practice times the Australian could only manage eighteenth place.
Race one was tough for Goddard, with the Zandvoort track proving difficult to overtake it was down to an accident in front of him that saw him gain two places. “My disappointing result was pretty much due by my poor qualifying session. It was an incredibly tough race as it is very difficult to pass on this track.” said Goddard.
The second race of the weekend would see further frustration for the 22-year-old; a good start saw him pass his MRS team-mate Elia Erhart in the early stages of the race to move up the standings before setting his sights on Nickals Kentenich who was five seconds ahead. A spirited driver by Goddard saw him reduce the gap and with five laps remaining he was looking good to challenge for position.
An incident ahead of the pack would bring out the safety car, meaning that he wouldn’t be able to challenge for the position. A retirement from Daniel Cammish would gift another position to Goddard who would finish the race in fifteenth place.
“It was a tough weekend mainly due to qualifying”, said Goddard. “I am really happy with how I drove in race 2. Once I had a clear track I was over 0.5 seconds per lap quicker than the cars just in front of me. I was driving well and I believe that I could have gained a couple more positions had the Safety Car not come out with five laps to go in the race.”
Despite not being able to make the most of the weekend Goddard continues to lead the Rookie championship as the series reaches the halfway mark. The next race for Goddard is in the Mobil1 Porsche Supercup at the Hungaroring in Budapest at the end of July.