Imola. Fifteen laps at one of the great old-school circuits, a P12 grid slot, honest pace — and one Italian-administered shove in Turn 4 that relocated me to the back of the field. I finished P20, and somehow I still love this track.
Qualifying
P12 on the grid with a 1:44.882 — midfield in a 25-car split at 2229 strength of field. Imola’s Grand Prix layout is unforgiving in the Cup car: kerbs that want to spit you off, walls that are always closer than they look, and almost nowhere to recover a mistake. Starting from the middle of that pack means one thing above all: survive the opening laps. Spoiler: I did not get the chance.
Lap 4, Turn 4 — a gentle Italian greeting
Lap 4, Turn 4. I’m on the brakes, turned in, mid-corner — the one moment in racing where a tap from behind has exactly one possible outcome. Marco Russo, coming through from P21, delivered that tap. Physics did the rest: the car snapped around, the field streamed past, and my race reset itself to the back. Maybe I was too slow for his taste in that corner. But anyone who has driven the Cup car knows what happens when you nudge someone who is braking and steering — you spin them out, every single time. Draw your own conclusions; I have drawn mine. He finished P15. I finished P20. Racing incident reports write themselves sometimes. So ist das Leben im Rennsport.
The recovery stint
From there it became a solo consistency exercise — and honestly a decent one. My best lap, a 1:44.408, came on lap 14 of 15, which tells you the pace never dropped off. Only 3 incident points across the whole race despite the spin, so the driving stayed clean. I’ll admit there were a couple of moments where I very nearly finished the job Marco started — self-inflicted near-misses that had my heart rate doing things my Whoop would describe as “training”. But the car came home, lead lap, 39 seconds behind winner BF Young, who took it from P2 on the grid.
The rig report: now in 4K OLED
The immersion side of this race deserves its own headline. The D-BOX full-motion platform with the Cubic belt-tension system was, as always, doing its thing — every kerb strike at Imola lands in your body, and a Turn 4 spin is something you feel rather than watch. But the real upgrade this time: my new triple-screen setup, 4K OLED. The picture is simply bombastic. Imola at golden light on three OLED panels, with the motion platform working underneath — that is as close to sitting in the real car as my living room is legally allowed to get. I love driving this thing.
Where it leaves me
The honest numbers: P12 to P20 costs iRating — 2030 down to 1982. The Safety Rating went the other way, up 0.10, which is what happens when your biggest incident of the day was donated by someone else. The bigger picture is the strength-of-field problem: the only way out of the lower splits is volume. So that is the plan — more races during the week, while Saturday or Sunday stays reserved as my filmed race day. More seat time, more consistency, and results like this one become the exception instead of the pattern. Imola, I’ll be back — brilliant race, brilliant track, one uninvited passenger.
| Series | iRacing Porsche Cup – Fixed by CONSPIT – 2026 Season 3 |
| Track | Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola) – Grand Prix |
| Car | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) |
| Start / Finish | P12 → P20 (25 cars) |
| Incidents | 3x |
| Out | Running (lap 15 of 15) |
| iRating | 2030 → 1982 (-48) |
| Safety Rating | +0.10 |
| Strength of Field | 2229 |
| Championship points | 28 |
| My best lap | 1:44.408 (lap 14) |
| Fastest lap | 1:43.591 (BF Young) |
Full Result
The complete classification (my row in bold):
| Pos | Driver | Car | Inc | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BF Young | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 6x | Finished |
| 2 | Tarik Isik | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 3x | Finished |
| 3 | Samuel Smets | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 1x | Finished |
| 4 | Vilhelm Ruby | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Finished |
| 5 | Tobias Klima | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 12x | Finished |
| 6 | Moritz Gruber | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 8x | Finished |
| 7 | Modest Ach | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 9x | Finished |
| 8 | Gabor Hunyadi | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 5x | Finished |
| 9 | Josué Sóto | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 10x | Finished |
| 10 | Pavel Krastev | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 12x | Finished |
| 11 | Julio Galilea | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 8x | Finished |
| 12 | Mathieu JP Lacroix | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 8x | Finished |
| 13 | Chang Min Park | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 6x | Finished |
| 14 | Torsten Spamer | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 5x | Finished |
| 15 | Marco.G Russo | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 8x | Finished |
| 16 | Jonas Ding | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 16x | Finished |
| 17 | Robin Jacob | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 1x | Finished |
| 18 | Sean Edwards3 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 15x | Finished |
| 19 | David López Carrera | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 5x | Finished |
| 20 | Philipp Geppl | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 3x | Finished |
| 21 | Oliver Lawson-Waring | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Finished |
| 22 | Reece Wolferstan | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 17x | Disconnected |
| 23 | Joshua Andrew | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 13x | Disconnected |
| 24 | Antonio Martino | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 0x | Finished |
| 25 | Oliwier Filip Ściskała | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 0x | Disconnected |
Livery by Jeremy Kerr (Trading Paints).
Catch the full race & behind-the-wheel shots
Full lap on YouTube, in-helmet snapshots on Instagram.