Lasse's slotpage
European Championship 2001.
G-27 and G-7
G-7
The track was difficult to drive during Thursday but became better and better during practice.
After G-27 the track had changed a lot and became quite fast but it was still kind of slippery and you had to be smooth in the turns. Most people still opted for steel chassis instead of aluminum ones.
Qualifying
Qualifying was not as fast as we thought it should be. Most drivers found it difficult to do a good lap. It was a good opportunity for someone with a good racecar to do well without using fast motors but in the end it was well known names in the top.
Mario Schöne showed how it should be done with a 1,8943 lap time.
It was enough to do a lap under 2.000 to be in the semi-final.
Quarterfinals
Four people were going to be eliminated from the Quarters but aggressive drivers and horsepower does not always go hand in hand. Crashes were frequent and the race directors decided that you could call a stop if your car was on the straight between the finger and the 90-degree turn. There were two reasons for that. One was that there is a small bridge on the straight for marshals to use when going inside the track and it caused a lot of crashes when you could not see that a car was on the straight below it.
The other reason was due to much yelling among the drivers warning the others that they had deslotted and to few drivers listening (or understanding the language in which the warning was shouted).
This helped the quarters somewhat but also caused a lot of problems for others since the track was switched of so many times and those who caused the crash started on the straight while the innocent often was in a turn.
In the end those who caused crashes did not lose so much on it, as they should.
Semifinals
Most of the expected drivers reached the main. The last ones to reach the main were Vlado Okali and Stefan Törnfeldt. Stefan was about a half lap ahead of home driver Douwe Banning who unfortunately missed the main in his homeclub first European Championship on the new track.
Main
I hope that I can come back with more facts from the main.
In the first heat Lars Åberg got kicked twice in the finger and one of the rear wheels got severe bent. This was something, bent rims that would happen several times during the race.
After the first heats familiar names were in the top plus one not so expected driver, Marko Pirinen from Finland.
Crashes still occurred and Mario left the track for repair of the car (gear, motor?)
In the latter parts of the race it was a battle between Marko Pirinen, Kimmo Rautama, Lars Åberg and Juha Yli-Sipola.
In the seventh heat Lasse Åberg had to change motor after lacking some magnets. In the hunt for the European Championship title were now Kimmo and Marko with Marko a few laps ahead of Kimmo but having the tricky black lane (8) to tackle.
Early in the eight heat Kimmo's motor went up in smoke leaving Marko in a lonely lead.
Juha was chasing Lasse hard pulling back laps after laps. Kimmo came back to the track making it a three-way battle for the second place.
Marko Pirinen won his first European Championship ahead of Lasse Åberg and Kimmo Rautama.
Results can be found below.
Winner in G-7 Marko Pirinen, Finland
Something to remember is that Marko did the quarter- semi and mainfinal on one and the same motor!
