Patrick Schober greatly enjoyed his tarmac oval debut in the NASCAR Oval GP at Venray, as written in the Austrian’s post-race summary.
It was a challenging weekend for Patrick Schober on his first oval racing weekend at Raceway Venray last week, but the young Austrian driver loved the experience of driving at the half-mile oval that hosted the 2024 NASCAR Oval GP.
Schober came prepared for the NASCAR Oval GP, given that he and Motorsportaktiv worked together to give the 19-year old driver a chance to test out a BriSCA F2 racer at Natschbach-Loipersbach prior to the Venray weekend.
“It was my first time in a [tarmac] oval and I loved it,” posted Schober on social media after the race. “I would love to drive the next oval race right now. We had a great weekend at Venray.”
In his summary, Schober stated that he found himself comfortable with the No. 3 RDV Competition Ford Mustang from the get go, but also revealed that an incident during the second Free Practice session hampered him for the rest of the weekend.
“I was doing very well and I was able to drive top times straight away, but I tried too much in the second practice session,” revealed Schober in his summary. “I understeered into the dirt at the top and touched the wall.”
“As the time between the sessions was too short for a repair, I had a new tie rod installed but there was no time to measure the car. So, we had to both test the repair work and qualify at the same time.”
“I got P6, which was good due to the circumstances, but the car didn’t feel as good as it was before. It was almost unpredictable when braking and turning in, but I had to live with that in the race.”
Despite this issue, the Austrian kept the spirits high for the race as he had already expected a tough weekend at Venray. He lost several places at the start, but fought back and came home in sixth place after a race-long battle with Lux Motorsport’s Jack Davidson.
“It’s like a lottery, which is completely normal in oval racing,” wrote Schober on how the race went. “I started on the inside lane, the bad line, and lost several positions until I found a gap in the fast top lane to move up to eighth.”
“The race was characterized by long, hard but fair duels and in the end I was sixth. I’m very happy with the race, especially after we found a bent rear axle when we had a detailed analysis of the car post-race.”
This result allowed Schober to maintain fourth place in the overall standings. Thomas Krasonis managed to tie him on points, but the RDV driver won out on the best finish: A second in Valencia compared to Krasonis’ third in Brands Hatch.
Schober’s next race will be at Autodrom Most on 31 August-1 September, the site of his first career podium finish in EuroNASCAR 2 last year.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.