With its numerous leader changes, violent car wrecks, and unprecedented overtakes, Sunday's Brooklyn Piers Championship will go down in history as one of the greatest championships to ever take place. After the three Grand Prix produced three separate winners, the title came down, yet again, to the combined circuit, and, in an almost exact replica of Beaumont, Kelly managed to take the lead in the final two laps to walk home with his 3rd Championship title of the season. The driver has expanded his lead to 20 points, and with only 26 points remaining in the season, Kelly has just about cinched the Grand Champion crown.
The evening started off with a bang: two car wrecks in the first race of the first Grand Prix that would retire Humenry and Ambatzidis' cars and force them to use back up vehicles. Kelly didn't allow the commotion to disturb him. He came out strong and primed for an East Village repeat and took the first Grand Prix in a perfect sweep. But the driver struggled to replicate this success in the 2nd and 3rd Grand Prix, where he took 4th and 3rd respectively.
The dip in Kelly's performance had his fans worried that perhaps the pressure had finally gotten to the driver. But as Kelly told Rooftop Racing reporter, Jessamine Waters, after the championship, it was, in fact just the opposite, that "[he] didn't feel enough pressure out there". "I didn't feel challenged out there. When I finally felt a little pressure, and I mean really just a tiny amount of pressure, in the Combined Circuit, I won," Kelly continued.
When asked if Kelly felt assured that he would take home the Grand Champion title going into the final Championship, he had this to say:
"I've already won it. I won it from the moment I woke up the morning of Brooklyn Piers, from first race of this season, from the first word I said as a child, which was in fact 'win', because that's just who I am: a winner. That's what these other drivers (if you can really call them that) don't understand. I'm a winner, always. Even when I lose I win. But yeah to answer your question, it's comforting to have such a big lead going into the final Championship".
Kelly relishes in Brooklyn Piers win.
The Championship saw big wins for the other drivers as well. Humenry in particular showed off his capabilities as a driver and cemented himself as the one to beat for most of the evening. After a slight adjustment period to his new car in the 1st Grand Prix, the driver landed on the scene in the 2nd GP taking home a couple key wins to finish in 2nd place in the event. The driver would continue to perfect his stride in the 3rd Grand Prix where he won a decisive victory.
The two big finishes were enough to put Humenry into the lead going into the Combined circuit, where he was the presumptive winner of the Championship. But, unfortunately the driver could not convert and took third in the event, and, with such a closely packed field in the Championship standings, ended the evening in 3rd place. Humenry remains in 4th in the season standings, out of contention for the Grand Champion title, but has narrowed the gap for 3rd to just two points.
Humenry told Waters after the Championship, that he was proud of how he raced despite the overall outcome, and when asked if he would be considering switching to McLaren next season after his successful performance with the car that day, Humenry said that "[he] would welcome the idea".
Kaplan, too, had some big wins during the evening, and appeared to be making a late Grand Champion title surge, after the driver took home a declarative 2nd Grand Prix win. But Kaplan struggled to continue his success in the 3rd GP, where he finished last. He was not able to come up big in the Combined Circuit the way the driver had done in the past two Combined Circuits, and ultimately finished in 4th place in the Championship. Kaplan has fallen to 3rd in the Season Standings and out of contention for the Grand Champion title. He now trails Ambatzidis for 2nd by eight points.
Muscle and consistency where the name of the game for Ambatzidis, and allowed the Greek driver to power through the field, force collisions, and take home two important 2nd place finishes in the 1st and 3rd Grand Prix. It appeared the strategy would pay off for Ambatzidis and Team Hurracán Performante, when Ambatzidis took the lead from Humenry in the Combined Circuit and held it for most of the race before losing it to Kelly in the second to last lap.
Ambatzidis finished in 2nd in the Combined Circuit and the Championship, and remains in 2nd in the season standings. He trails Kelly by 20 points and will need to come up very big in the final, 26 point championship if he wants to take home the Grand Champion title. But, as the Team's Chief Mechanic, Yorgos Yiannopoulos, told us, "don't underestimate the Boy's ability to surprise us. He has come up big before and just may do so again".
The Lamborghini Classic comes to an end this Saturday, October 24th with the 435 Championship.
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