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The second stage of the 2020 Manufacturer Series got underway on July 4th.

The stage was dominated by Mercedes-Benz's Latkovski (Nik_Makozi), who never looked like relinquishing his place at the top of the leaderboard.

Instead, the most exciting battle turned out to be for second place, with Ford's Wilk (Adam_2167) duking it out with BMW's McDonald (Keeden231), often taking it in turns to outperform each other from race to race.

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The final race of Stage 2 took place on the Nürburgring's 24h layout, and featured Gr. 3 cars.

McDonald took pole position, with Latkovski starting in second place and Wilk in third.

The leading pack all opted to start the race on medium tyres. Proceedings got underway in an orderly fashion, with no major position changes in the opening stages.
Before long, the top three of McDonald, Latkovski and Wilk had opened up a significant gap between them and the rest of the field. All three seemed content to feel each other out in the early stages of the race, and no ambitious overtaking manoeuvres were attempted.

Things started to get interesting on the second lap's Döttinger Höhe straight, with Latkovski making use of McDonald's slipstream to move into the lead. Wilk, on the other hand, was starting to slow down as a result of fuel consumption problems, and was soon lagging far behind the leading pair.

The top three drivers all took a pit stop ahead of the final lap. Having conserved fuel early in the race by staying tight behind McDonald, Latkovski was able to complete his refuelling and re-emerge onto the track in double-quick time.
This meant that a 1.3 second gap had opened up between him and McDonald in second place.
But McDonald wasn't done yet. On the final Döttinger Höhe straight, he adjusted his line in order to make use of Latkovski's slipstream. This meant that both cars were side-by-side heading into the final corner, but McDonald wasn't able to find an opening to overtake in the end, and did not force the issue.
Given the corner's reputation as the scene of numerous reckless and ruinous overtaking attempts, the drivers are to be commended for ensuring that their battle remained a clean one throughout.

In the end, it was another impressive victory for Mercedes-Benz's Latkovski. Despite not dominating the race, and only winning by a whisker in the end, his win meant that he remained top of the overall leaderboard at the end of the stage, with a huge gap between him and the rest of the drivers.

Rank	Driver	DR	SR	Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Rd. 11	Rd. 12	Rd. 13	Rd. 14	Rd. 15	Rd. 16	Rd. 17	Rd. 18	Rd. 19	Rd. 20	Total
1	Mercedes-Benz Nik_Makozi	S	S	338	346	398	327	330	319	421	290	344	417	339	0	251	323	258	401	205	349	-	408	2045
2	Ford Adam_2167	S	S	313	288	413	299	206	235	359	332	314	387	282	332	237	337	286	386	273	334	302	378	1923
3	BMW Keeden231	S	S	324	272	383	242	310	-	374	274	329	371	311	-	265	309	287	372	246	273	-	393	1893
4	Lamborghini MetalGear9493	S	S	285	332	292	-	-	-	405	286	301	402	325	293	335	260	299	342	267	-	-	-	1816
5	Toyota sidawg2	S	S	299	216	337	313	303	331	390	277	215	341	-	-	260	-	295	-	301	247	264	363	1762
6	Porsche MINT_Matt	S	S	326	274	256	341	324	-	281	318	288	356	113	306	-	295	322	-	287	298	247	310	1669
7	Audi emreeree	S	S	204	303	368	266	338	-	312	-	286	203	296	291	321	154	-	313	314	305	257	0	1654
8	Alfa Romeo AE_McEwen	S	S	-	284	231	331	317	292	266	304	-	-	113	0	-	-	298	357	-	319	62	303	1628
9	Volkswagen JonoStan96	S	S	258	260	352	170	248	-	189	238	209	279	289	268	192	225	274	269	328	159	323	333	1625
10	Nissan VLX_GTR	S	S	-	317	322	-	226	270	251	286	258	325	277	242	271	266	309	298	-	261	226	348	1621