For the first time in years, yesterday Équipe Mirage had its comeback on the racetrack in an actual race. Interestingly, that happened by accident…
Background
In simracing, Équipe Mirage complements our classic simracing team Team RaceCar. In the past, that became necessary whenever we had more drivers than available slots in one team — so a “B-Team” had to be created. That happened for the first time back in 2001, when Daniel and myself wanted to start in a hotlap competition where only two drivers per team were allowed.
The last time we had more drivers than slots for Team RaceCar and therefor the need for Équipe Mirage to appear was during the German Simracing Formula Masters (DSFM) back in 2012.
Comeback
Yesterday evening, there was the comeback. When designing the liveries for our latest GT3 cars, Daniel always created a Mirage variant as well. That was originally meant more as a design study than with the concrete plan of actually using it. But as we all love the yellow-blue design, I used it during our more-or-less regular test sessions.
Such a test session happened yesterday and while chatting about our lives, Dahie and myself did not realize that we were not on a training server, but in an actual qualifying session preparing for a race — on the Nordschleife!
For me, it was the first online race in ACC and therefore also the first race for our yellow Mirage RC-24-EM.
Race Report
As most of you probably know, the Nordschleife is quite long. The 24h version of the track which was used is a combination of the Nordschleife itself and the entire Grand Prix course, resulting in a combined length of 25.378 km.
That means that for short races like ours, an actual qualifying session is nearly impossible. Thirty minutes are hardly enough for an outlap and one timed lap when a single lap takes about eight minutes — especially if something goes wrong and you need to restart your lap.
In the end, the only car in the field of 10 to complete a timed lap was car #47 — the RaceCar RC-24-EM driven by Dahie — meaning pole position for the race.
I was not able to finish my lap in the Mirage, as I had a severe crash at Galgenkopf after which I aborted the lap. But ACC counted that as “nearly completed” — or at least I progressed further than the others — meaning I could complete the front row on starting position 2.
As that was my first online race in ACC — and my first online race in years in general — I instantly got a bit nervous. Dahie explained some basic knowledge about the starting procedure and there we go.
As common in GT3 racing, it was a flying start, so Dahie set the pace and I needed to keep up with him until the green flag appeared. To be honest, it was already quite a challenge to stay correctly positioned and avoid receiving an early penalty for failing to do so — but it worked out.
The green flag appeared and obviously both Dahie and myself still need to improve our reactions, as the Porsche 911 GT3 behind us overtook both of us almost immediately. No problem, as our main goal was simply to finish the race — especially on such a demanding track where we lack experience.
Running in P3, I approached Turn 1 conservatively on the inside when I suddenly got a massive impact at the rear of the car. Some colleague must have seriously missed the braking point. But as GT3 cars are quite massive, it was not that big of a deal and I recovered in P5.
But then the first deal breaker came over the Discord channel: by accident, Dahie had fueled only 2 liters — which would only allow him to make it around the Grand Prix section. Anyway, he tried his best to come back to the pits, but it was not possible to enter the pit lane (just like the Abt Lamborghini during the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours). As there was no chance to complete a fuel-saving lap around the Nordschleife, he decided to respawn, causing around 90 seconds of time loss — but at least he could continue.
My own race was actually going quite well. I felt surprisingly comfortable and had no real issues from the rear damage.
At the Aremberg right-hander, the Porsche 911 appeared again in my mirrors (surprisingly, as he had already overtaken me right after the green flag), but as he was clearly faster I let him pass shortly after the corner. It would not matter for long anyway, as I still only wanted to finish the race — currently running in P6.
After Bergwerk I was suddenly P4, obviously because two competitors had lost their cars somewhere on the track, so I gained two positions.
But only until I got on the throttle too early at the exit of the Caracciola-Karussell: I got massive oversteer which led to a spin on the track. That cost me one position — back to P5.
Now things became more difficult. I felt quite safe on the first half of the track, but after the Karussell the Nordschleife becomes much harder. A lot of difficult-to-remember — and even harder-to-learn — tight corners, elevation changes and blind sections. I nearly lost the car several times, but when I approached the Sprunghügel I suddenly was in P2. I overtook one car on track, but I honestly do not know what happened to the others.
The joy did not last long: as I had already done several times during training sessions, I was too fast in the left-hander before Schwalbenschwanz and crashed into the guardrail. Result: a bent front axle. I decided to stop for repairs, even though that would obviously cost me contact to the front-runners and P2.
I somehow survived the Döttinger Höhe and entered the pit lane. Next issue: during training sessions the pit speed limiter is activated automatically — during races it is not. So I rushed into the pit lane at far too high speed.
The repairs went well, but then I got the bad news: DSQ for speeding in the pit lane. My first race in years ended after just one lap.
As it is not particularly meaningful to argue with a computer program, I left the car and decided to check what the sister car with Dahie on board was doing. I saw that he had taken over P2, as nearly all the other guys had lost their cars as well.
In the end, Dahie managed to finish the race in 2nd place — all in all not great as only 2 cars managed to finish the race, but at least we learned one important thing: races are fun, so we should keep doing them.