Some surprises

Lysen and Leppihalme fastest while Enerberg continues his domination.

The order among the TouringCar field is not much different from what we might expect, Lars Øivind Enerberg continuing his magnificent form and setting fastest time, chased here by home favourite Ole Håbjørg. A spin cost Derek Tohill and kept the champion down in tenth place. Between him and the top, Belgian Koen Pauwels the only European among the Scandinavians.

Elsewhere the form book was not of much use, Mats Lysen repeating his fastest time from practice and shading Andréas Eriksson, Henning Solberg and Sverre Isachsen. While Lysen’s run was impressive – smooth, clean and tidy from the front – Solberg’s result noteworthy as the rally man was boxed out in turn one, ran into the Joker Lap and survived a clash with Michaël De Keersmaecker that displaced the front bumper of the Citroën and could easily have accounted for the 0.5s that is between him and Lysen. “I would have been fastest without the first corner for sure, I lost a lot of time there,” said Solberg.

Appearing to have a certain magnetic attraction for each other, Tanner Foust and Liam Doran again traded paint, the pair ending the heat placed 17th and 19th respectively after a tough race and some contact that appeared to start as the pack squeezed together leaving the grid. Enjoying a much better run, Andy Scott’s good form in practice brought him into the last race of the afternoon and a good run in it resulted in ninth place; “I got a ‘well done’ on the radio from Tony [Bardy] so it must have been alright,” said Scott in acknowledgement of his engineer’s cautious use of praise.

The Super1600 field also got a bit of a surprise, newcomer Jussi-Petteri Leppihalme winning the penultimate race of the heat. Andreas Bakkerud went in the last race of the heat and had clear track all the way as he took a win, but failed by 0.24s to beat his new team mate who, with typical Finnish cool, seemed unflustered by his result, “The idea was to use this event as a test, so I am a bit surprised; it did not feel so quick in the car,” said the latest protégé of former champion Jussi Pinomäki.

Non finishers of note included Jaroslav Kalný who spun out of Super1600 contention after the rear suspension of his Peugeot 207 broke. Svein Roger Andersen led his race – the same one that contained Solberg – after the rough first corner, but dropped out in the second lap with a rear puncture on his Volvo. De Keersmaecker went off and was stuck in the gravel trap after his rub with Solberg while Pavel Koutný also stopped after a suspension breakage caused a spin. Ludvig Hunsbedt was also in the Solberg race and retired in the first lap, “I was a bit slow on the lights and then everyone was in the Joker Lap, I hit someone, De Keersmaecker I think, and it broke a rear upright so I had to stop,” said Hunsbedt.

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