Eight-seconds!
by Tim Whittington |
Isachsen demolishes opponents. Skorupski and Enerberg fastest.
A year after he drove through illness to take victory in the Swedish ERC round, Sverre Isachsen has opened the 2011 version of the event with fastest time in the first heat – in which he smashed a mighty eight-seconds off the previous fastest time to lead at the end of day one. Isachsen’s amazing drive followed on from fastest time in the timed practice session, before which he had consulted with former World Rally Champion Petter Solberg, here as a spectator, on tyre choice for the difficult conditions.
Run in drying conditions, Isachsen in the last race almost certainly had the best conditions, although earlier in the heat Toomas Heikkinen had delivered an attacking drive to set the benchmark at 3m28.253s, fully 5.5s faster than Timur Timerzyanov had managed in the previous race. Heikkinen’s time stood as best until the penultimate race in which Andy Scott had a clear run on the front and, driving beautifully, chipped 0.2s off the Finn’s effort to be fastest. Then came Isachsen who also attacked the track, running right to its edge and a little in several places and stopping the clocks just 3m20.581s after the race had started. Mats Lysen chased Isachsen hard but sent a lap stuck behind Jean-Luc Pailler, his 3m23.215s still easily good enough for second fastest, albeit 2.6s down on Isachsen.
Krzysztof Skorupski maintained his great form to be fastest among the Super1600 field, his last race run 0.2s better than Andreas Bakkerud who put himself squarely back in contention after his weather induced timed practice problems. Jussi-Petteri Leppihalme might also have been up the top, but the young Finn spun off in the last lap…
There was little to report from the TouringCar heat, Lars Øivind Enerberg fastest with Roman Častoral making the most of the conditions to be second and Anton Marklund shining in third place ahead of John “Pirkka” Karlsson.
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