08.02.2016

Report by J-P.Huhtala (VRC race reporter)

2016 Season 1 and round 2, Atsugi 2

Here we are, at Atsugi 2. This race continues 13.5 spec touring Season1, wich started from Carpet 3 track. French Steve Favrelle and Finnish Viljami Kutvonen, who wonned that first race at Carpet3,
wasn’t at participants list. So this venue was all open, of course looking the entrylist and drivers, hopes were high for exiting race. At qualifying fastest speed held Dana Bailes from USA, second place went to Willem Janse van Rensburg from South Africa. Willems gap to Dana, was only 0.3 seconds. Also with very tiny gap to the leader, third qualifier was Benjamin Lehmann from Germany, loosing only 0.6 seconds to the TQ. So expects were really high, if everybody could hold they speed at finals, it was going to be very close battle.


From tone, drivers speed up and final was started. Dana and Willem were at front and competing very close each other. Side by side they drove almost all final and result would depend only who would handle the nerves better. All five minutes these guys were in the battle. At lap 8th Willem passed first time Dana, and this was close, I would say war. After this, Willem little pit drop pace and Dana went by. Willem didn’t let the gap go bigger than 0.3 seconds, he pushed very hard and at lap 13 he once again passed Dana. Dana didn’t give up, he wanted that first place and he waited and followed.
Starting lap 15 Willem cutted too much first corner and now Dana was pleased and heading for the win. Side by side they were driving, you couldn’t see any difference of speed and this was fun to watch. 17th lap and Willems hard pressure made result and he got the lead, but Dana was there.
Of course this was known before the final that without those mistakes, battle would be ready. And that it was. They continued this fight to very end of the last lap. Turning from last corner, Willem got better line and acceleration and came to the finishline ONLY 0.13seconds ahead of Dana.




Benjamin Lehmann came to third place, his pace was pretty much, one 10th slower than the leaders pace. So, there was nothing to do, just wait mistakes from those two. Also gap to fourth place was over 2seconds, so Benjamin only job was to make sure that speed stays consistently. Of course, there was little battle with Saputra but this German laprobot held his nerves and came from this battle victorious.



One of this race succeeder was Hijrah Saputra from Indonesia, his starting grid was 8th. Saputras speed got two 10th`s better for the finals. He was competing very strongly with Lehmann and Nuno Correia from Portugal, who also got better speed for finals. Saputra was at some point of heat at third place, speed was very good. He was competing really hard with Lehmann about third place, but at lap 8th he droped to fifth place. Correia was also joined to this podium fight, now places third fourth and fifth were, Lehmann, Correia and Saputra. At this point, Lehmann got little gap to Correia and Saputra. It looked that Benjamin is getting away and so he did.



Now Borges from Brasilia had also joined to fight , with Correia and Saputra. While Saputra and Borges were competing fifth place, Correia got a little gap to these. But there was no time to breathe, these two were furiously fast at behind. Borges gave a good pressure to Saputra, but Saputra finded somewhere extra gear and drove few laps very same laptimes than leaders did. Thank to these magnificent laps he managed to get little margin to Borges and concentrate to close the gap to Correia. At the very last lap, thanks to these five magnificent laps, he passed Correia and this 34 year old Indonesian talent got fourth place.

This final was very very close battle, fun to watch and cant wait more of these. NICE DRIVING GUYS!!

A-main FINAL PRO

1|Willem Janse van Rensburg|ZA|23|05:07.336 2|Dana Bailes|US|23|05:07.466 3|Benjamin Lehmann|DE|23|05:09.800 4|Hijrah Saputra|ID|23|05:12.086 5|Nuno Correia|PT|23|05:12.200 6|Marcelo Borges|BR|22|05:00.202 7|Christoph Löb|AT|22|05:02.544 8|Graham Raistrick|GB|22|05:02.804 9|Carson Yeung|HK|22|05:02.884 10|Olev Pihl|EE|22|05:09.730

A-main FINAL SPORT

1|Lee Passehl|US|22|05:05.956 2|Anakin Xiu|CN|21|05:00.878 3|Kevin Tsang|HK|21|05:04.920 4|Wolfgang Roth|AT|21|05:06.142 5|Thomas Klingen|DE|21|05:06.410 6|Tzu hua Su|TW|21 05:09.550 7|Yuriy Meshkov|RU|21|05:09.644 8|Romain LACROIX|FR|21|05:12.196 9|Santo Grasso|IT|21|05:12.776 10|Hans Guenther Heitsch|DE|21|05:13.182

A-main FINAL CLUB

1|Sean Krause|DE|22|05:11.874 2|Nuno Lourenco|PT|21|05:05.444 3|Joe Cude|US|21|05:07.786 4|Dag Vidar Haslund|NO|21|05:12.134 5|Carl Huxford|GB|20|05:07.738 6|Iris Lahora|PH|20|05:11.482 7|Aron Roach|AU|20 05:14.346 8|Uwe Roesler|DE|19|05:07.318 9|Michael Sorouni|AU|18 05:00.686 10|Przemek Wicher|PL|DNS

Comments