16.03.2016

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

2016 Season 1 and round 4, Carpet 1

QUALIFYING
Round 4 of the ISTC 13.5 series was held in here, Carpet 1 track. Many top drivers participated also this one and it was expected very exiting event from this one. Toth, Kutvonen and Holmström were those guys at front after qualifying was ended. Hungarian Toth was in first place, with 1.3 seconds faster pace than Finnish Viljami Kutvonen who came second. Third fastest was Swedish talent Christian Holmström and his gap to TQ was 1.6 seconds. American Dana Bailes got the fourth and Indonesian Hijrah Saputra fifth grid. Behind those three at front, differences were very tiny, as those were all inside 3.4 seconds.
Prepairing to final had to be perfect, any mistake wouldnt be allowed.

RACE
When grid was arranged, atmosphere little collapsed as we saw that Bailes, Fossto and Favrelle were not at the grid. But we had these seven laprobots to give us a good entertainment.
At start, Toth and Kutvonen took explosive start and got little margin to rest of the group.


Some cutted corners we saw from Toth, this was one of those. Kutvonen had very same pace with Toth.

Dont know was Holmströn at third grid sleeping or what, but his start wasnt strong. With his poor start he dropped to fifth place behind Raistrick. Order in front was Toth, Kutvonen and Saputra when zero lap had driven. Toth and Kutvonen were in close battle and these were very aware that mistakes were not allowed. Holmström showed his fantastic skills in first laps, as he gained his third place back, Saputra was in fourth and Raistrick in fifth place. Toth in front was strong, he had very consistent pace and had gained half second margin to Kutvonen in second place when fifth lap started. Holmström in third place was furios, sleeping at start had costed a little to him and now this Swedish was chasing Kutvonen. Raistrick had pressured Saputra at fourth place and also passed, now Graham was in fourth and Hijrah at fifth place. Rensburg was in close range behind Saputra, just waiting these two to make mistakes. After eight laps, Kutvonen in second, had got his ”battle rhytm” and was challenging Toth of first place. As these drivers passed the timingline, difference between these two were only 0.1 seconds. Holmström`s fantastic attack had made result and he was allready behind Kutvonen, waiting to place to pass.


Christian Holmström had also magnificent pace, it was guite similar with those two at front, that he couldnt pass them.

Raistrick in fourth place was in trouble with Saputra, and it only needed one wide corner and Saputra immediatly used this and got the fourth place. But this wasnt over yet, as we knewed how strong guys were against. There was very tight group, Saputra, Raistrick and Rensburg fighting about fourth position. In lap 16 Saputra cutted the corner two and now it was Raistrick`s place to get to fourth, but Saputra holded his nerves, stay with rhytm and was very close behind Graham. But also Rensburg had something to say, he tightened his rhytm and start to challenge Saputra in fifth position. Few times he allready visit that place, but this Indonesian wasnt easy peace and didnt surrender. Hijrah Saputra from Indonesia was competing very strongly against these VRC top drivers and this was fun to watch.
Toth and Kutvonen continued they battle of first place and it looked that Holmström had settled to third place when last minute started. In last minute we had guite exiting battle, as Rensburg attacked against Saputra in fourth and Raistrick in fifth position. End of 20th lap, Raistrick got bad speed for mainstraigth and this allowed to Saputra and Rensburg to catch him. And immediatly in first corner in lap 21 Saputra used his chance, passed Raistrick and now Raistrick had trouble with Rensburg. Few wrong line in some corners, and this was enough to Rensburg and he also passed Graham. Now Graham was in sixth position. Rensburg stayed in fifth position next few laps but Raistrick didnt surrender. Graham knewed that result is given at finishline and he was there.


At this point Raistrick in fourth Place, Saputra and Rensburg chasing. Finally Saputra was the strongest of these three.

Finally Rensburg`s was really unlucky. In last lap, last corner, he collided inside barrier and by this mistake he had to surrender with 0.026seconds margin to Graham. This wasnt nice too watch, as Willem had so magnificent attack.
As time was expired, Toth crossed the line in first place with one second ahead of Kutvonen. Holmström settled to third, one second behind Kutvonen. Hijrah Sputra holded his nerves and came to well deserved fourth place, but only 0.3 seconds ahead of Raistrick.

In SPORT level, race was wonned by American Lee Passehl. He got really good opponent from Swedish Markus Andreasson. At finishline difference between these two were 1.3 seconds.
German Sean Krause drove to third Place, his gap to winner was 3.8 seconds.

In CLUB level victory went to Nuno Lourenco from Portugal. Nuno didnt had any difficulties in this race, he wonned this with 5 seconds margin ahead of Dag Vidar Haslund from Norge.
Third at finishline was Robert Eder from Austria.

A main PRO

1|Barnabás Tóth|HU|24|05:03.356 2|Viljami Kutvonen|FI|24|05:04.382 3|Christian Holmström|SE|24|05:05.332 4|Hijrah Saputra|ID|24|05:08.462 5|Graham Raistrick|GB|24|05:08.842 6|Willem Janse van Rensburg|ZA|24|05:08.868 7|Arie Sugiarto|ID|24|05:11.552 8|Dana Bailes|US|DNS 9|André Fossto|SE|DNS 10|Steve Favrelle|FR|DNS

A main SPORT
1|Lee Passehl|US|23|05:03.372 2|Markus Andreasson|SE|23|05:04.716 3|Sean Krause|DE|23|05:07.248 4|Wolfgang Roth|AT|23|05:08.146 5|VRC Korea Master|KR|23|05:09.424 6|Thomas Klingen|DE|22|05:00.992 7|Jose Manuel Cruz Marquez|MX|22|05:04.116 8|Lando Landini|IT|22|05:04.176 9|Hans Guenther Heitsch|DE|22|05:05.670 10|Anakin Xiu|CN|DNS

A main CLUB
1|Nuno Lourenco|PT|23|05:09.204 2|Dag Vidar Haslund|NO|22|05:01.434 3|Robert Eder|AT|22|05:05.720 4|Peter Haaima|NL|22|05:08.196 5|Alexander Dunkl|AT|22|05:11.560 6|Gustavo Lagos|BR|21|05:04.756 7|Zach Cornwall|US|20|05:01.432 8|Kenny McConnell|US|20|05:01.570 9|Gilles Bigot|FR|DNS 10|Uwe Roesler|DE|DNS

SEASON STANDING AFTER 4 ROUNDS

PRO LEVEL
1|Hijrah Saputra|274 2|Graham Raistrick|273 3|Benjamin Lehmann|255 4|Christoph Löb|249 5|Dana Bailes|240 6|Milan Peka|235 7|Willem Janse van Rensburg|216 8|Nuno Correia|214 9|Marcelo Borges|214 10|Olev Pihl|204

SPORT LEVEL
1|Lee Passehl|320 2|Thomas Klingen|278 3|Wolfgang Roth|276 4|Hans Guenther Heitsch|268 5|Yuriy Meshkov|257 6|Romain LACROIX|239 7|Jonathan Csernak|229 8|Jean-philippe Csernak|228 9|Jose Manuel Cruz Marquez|223 10|Santo Grasso|221

CLUB LEVEL
1|Dag Vidar Haslund|304 2|Kenny McConnell|238 3|Nuno Lourenco|236 4|Yasuhiro Morta|232 5|Gary Climie|223 6|Jodie Grein|220 7|Victor Rodriguez|212 8|Aron Roach|175 9|Uwe Roesler|149 10|Matt Kabeiseman|146

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