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DutchAustrian GP 2009 - Do you dare to jump ?
 Podium GP Austria 2009 |
Only a few did dare to jump, many failed. |
Not many pilots made the effort to visit Austria.
A shame realy as we saw the best track so far. From a stunning jacuzzi-jet-stream shower(!) at the track, flat screens in the pit & on the rostrum, untill a fully equiped kitchen track side with mjam-jammie refreshments for everybody.
There was nothing one could think off what could have been arranged better.
Deffinately a place to remember and visit again.
Fehring is simply triple AAA racing !
On friday it was free practise and we spotted a very fast local youngster.
Patrick was the only driver being able to make the big double jump. He was fast and drove impressive but was deffinately not fast on the infield. At the end of the day Petr Hartman got better and better and was feeling more confident with his set-up already. He tried the big double and just succeeded. After a few more tries he knew how to run this one and from then on his lap times went down by 1.5 seconds per lap. He was now running the same pace as youngster Patrick at the end of the day. We went to bed satisfied and confident for Saturday.
On Saturday qualifikations. For some it went good, for some bad. Petr had a great day and set pole. Johnny found back his rhythm and was smiling ear to ear being 5th. Jeroen was moaning and not happy being just outside the semi's. Guest driver Ed lacks race rhythm and also needed to start in the quarter finals. Kampy was having an off-weekend and just trying and trying, not being able to make up his mind.
Sunday was D-day. The guys did what they had to do in the quarter finals and all came through.
In the semi's it was however a different game. Johnny was well on pace as all weekend but some over nerved pilot decided to park his car full speed in the rear of Johnny's car. Several repairs we tried but this was exit. Ed had to come down from the rostrum, batteries empty of his transmitter... A dumn and will never happen again experience :(
Petr faced a spark plug that was not running well. He just managed 5th. Jeroen came 5th in the other final as well with some luck. Kampy had woken up and was through as well on 3rd.
Christian Lebiest was the 4th Cleon we saw in the main final. Chrissi being a Hurrax team driver now decided to come along with his Cleon to have some fun and did very well.
During the preparation for the finals black clouds packed together. Conditions were fully changing, rain had set in.
Thank you Jupiter... not!
Race prosponded for another 30 minutes and then another 30 minutes delay came.
Finally all dried a bit so we could start.
Flag went down and soon after 2 laps Petr was just behind Pavel and taking over quite easily the lead. But he was not able to drive as steady he was able to do so before. The humid track demanded a different set-up. He was more fighting with the car and was not able to pull away so easy as before. This lead to some mistake and somewhere halfway the race a small clip from the shocker came off. It costed him 1min30. This was in the end to much to make up. Pavel Schiller won by 35 secs. Patrick came 2nd and just 3 secs short of nr 2 came Petr in 3rd. But 2nd or 3rd it didn't matter really. It was a desception for us all as he proved to be the fastest before.
Rok Bizjak made a solid 4th position doing an impressive drive in the finals. He was one of the few as well that was able to make the big double jump also time after time which gave him also a big time advantage. Chrissi did very well and had a cool battle in the finals with Jeroen. Both had a smile from ear to ear and were more then happy with their results.
It was a cracking track, excellent run meeting and very well outilized track.
We look forward to visit Fehring again!
1 Pavel Schiller CZ
2 Patrick Schweinzer A
3 Petr Hartmann CZ
4 Rok Bizjak CRO
5 Christian Lebiest D
6 Jeroen Workum NL
7 Pascal Cocquempot F
8 Michael Keß D
9 Andreas Kamp D
10 Jaroslav Prokes
