Two laps into a three-lap race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, my session ended not with a barrier but with a disconnect — and the sim handed me P28, a 94-point iRating drop, and zero sympathy.
What Actually Happened
Let’s be direct: I disconnected. Not a dramatic off into the Armco at Brünnchen, not a contact incident with someone defending hard into Döttinger Höhe — the connection simply dropped after lap two of three. I was starting from P20 in a 29-car field, so the result was never going to be a highlight reel moment, but finishing P28 because the cable pulled the plug is a uniquely frustrating flavour of bad result. There is no data to analyse, no corner to learn from, no incident to debrief. It just stopped.
For the record, I was not alone in this particular misery — the session logged four disconnects in total out of 29 starters, which suggests something upstream was having a worse evening than I was. Cold comfort when the iRating ticker reads -94, but at least it was not an isolated infrastructure failure on my end.
The Race I Missed
The session itself was a clean one by Nordschleife standards — no cautions across three laps of the Green Hell with eight different GT3 cars on track is genuinely impressive. Ray Frias took the win ahead of Hunter Johnson and Tony Koch, with Koch also posting the fastest lap of the race at a 6:35.416. One lead change, zero cautions, four DNFs. The 2092 SoF was respectable without being elite, so the points and rating implications of a solid finish would have been meaningful. I will never know what that felt like on this particular evening.
The Numbers and What They Mean
The iRating damage is 94 points, dropping me from 2223 to 2129. Safety Rating takes a 0.12 hit, landing at 2.84. Four incident points on two completed laps is not a great look either, though without lap time data on my side I cannot tell you exactly where those came from — the disconnect wiped the best lap entry entirely. The four championship points awarded feel like the iRacing equivalent of a participation sticker.
There is not much else to extract here. The Nordschleife will be back, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 will be back, and hopefully the internet connection will be considerably more cooperative next time around.
| Series | Ring Meister by LVRY – 2026 Season 3 |
| Track | Nürburgring Nordschleife |
| Car | Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 |
| Start / Finish | P20 → P28 (29 cars) |
| Incidents | 4x |
| Out | Disconnected (lap 2 of 3) |
| iRating | 2223 → 2129 (-94) |
| Safety Rating | -0.12 |
| Strength of Field | 2092 |
| Championship points | 4 |
| Fastest lap | 6:35.416 (Tony Koch) |
Full Result
The complete classification (my row in bold):
| Pos | Driver | Car | Inc | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ray Frias | Ford Mustang GT3 | 0x | Finished |
| 2 | Hunter Johnson10 | Ford Mustang GT3 | 1x | Finished |
| 3 | Tony Koch | Ford Mustang GT3 | 0x | Finished |
| 4 | Michael Piccininni | McLaren 720S GT3 EVO | 1x | Finished |
| 5 | Nate Forry | Ford Mustang GT3 | 2x | Finished |
| 6 | Ali Calas | BMW M4 GT3 EVO | 5x | Finished |
| 7 | Matthew Ward16 | Ford Mustang GT3 | 5x | Finished |
| 8 | Ben Justgreen | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 1x | Finished |
| 9 | Christopher Schatz | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 1x | Finished |
| 10 | Indika Sonnadara | McLaren 720S GT3 EVO | 0x | Finished |
| 11 | Wuu Yuuuuuu | Ford Mustang GT3 | 7x | Finished |
| 12 | Jack Kees | Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 | 16x | Finished |
| 13 | Guilherme Borges Oliveira | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO | 12x | Finished |
| 14 | Seth Lea | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 7x | Finished |
| 15 | Matías Castaño M. | Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 | 6x | Finished |
| 16 | Mario De La Fuente2 | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 13x | Finished |
| 17 | Ted Miller | BMW M4 GT3 EVO | 5x | Finished |
| 18 | Francisco Paz | BMW M4 GT3 EVO | 14x | Finished |
| 19 | Coen Hao | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 11x | Finished |
| 20 | Juan Colmenero | Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R | 0x | Finished |
| 21 | Dennis Hora | Ford Mustang GT3 | 15x | Finished |
| 22 | Pierre Meier | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 18x | Finished |
| 23 | Jair Alvarado | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO | 3x | Finished |
| 24 | Yixin Yu | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 17x | Finished |
| 25 | Juan Gallego4 | BMW M4 GT3 EVO | 6x | Disconnected |
| 26 | Nate Balzer | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 9x | Finished |
| 27 | Juanchi Requena | Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R | 4x | Disconnected |
| 28 | Philipp Geppl | Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 | 4x | Disconnected |
| 29 | Owen Mcgowan | Ford Mustang GT3 | 2x | Disconnected |
Livery by Jeremy Kerr (Trading Paints).