After the dust has settled in the dunes of Bahrain, one man stood above the rest- Liam Angelo Carag! The Irishman claimed two notable achievements after a night of essentially hotlapping on the field.
Firstly, his tenth ARC Formula 1 victory, putting him in the same company as AF1 champions such as Alex Mieth, AJ Knickle, Conner Stanek, Francis Pharand, Cameron Dowds, & Nico Piche.
Secondly, he achieved the first career victory for Apex Motorsports in ARC, despite being called up at the very last minute to replace a suddenly unavailable rookie Ayrton Frederick. Apex Motorsports became the 47th different ARC team to claim victory, doing so in their very first AF1 start. How this bodes for the rest of the season? For them, hopefully well.
Despite Carag's start on hard tires, he managed to hold off charges from the Racing Predators duo of Mikey De Jong, & much more fiercely, Abdulrahman Al Hazmi, until his spin before lap 10. Despite being able to bide his time, he opted not to, putting distance on the field with a fast-lap on 16 lap-old hard tires, before pitting, going to the end on the medium tire, & winning by a margin of 16.620s.
Al Hazmi claimed P2, while Tyler Crabtree managed a sneaky podium in P3 for Stotts-Crabtree Racing, standing firm while others above him faltered.
Of those who faltered, Jamie Nock had perhaps the most gruesome late-race collapse, going from a near-certain P2 at one stage to outside of the points by the end. Others to fall afoul of the margin of error were AJ Knickle, who spun on lap 10 after contact with Nock, Matty Dailey, who spun from fifth after contact with Tom Riddle, & Riddle, who picked up a penalty for it all.
After all was said & done, 7 teams scored points, with defending champions Hairpin Racing team picking up none with their two new drivers. Shawn Kissane came close, but missed.
Notably, new broadcasters Alex Fox & Billy Targee absolutely nailed their jobs, making the stream amazing. Tune into our Youtube Channel for Round 2, Friday March 24th, at 7PM Eastern!