Scramble!

Isachsen best Supercar driver after Petter Solberg’s advice, but Skorupski fastest overall in dry-wet practice.

Rain at the tail end of the Super1600 section mixed up the timed qualifying order, but came at such a time that the majority of Supercar runners were able to change tyres, and those at the top of the order also had the opportunity to make setup adjustments for the weather conditions. That, however, was not enough to topple Krzysztof Korupski who was fastest of the Super1600 runners and remained unbeaten, 0.8s ahead of Sverre Isachsen’s Supercar best.

Those who lost out most were the Super1600 pacesetters; already in the holding lanes for their timed laps and with no possibility to change tyres, they had to tread gingerly on the slippery track.

The TouringCar field had the best of the conditions, Lars Øivind Enerberg continuing his dominance of the class with fastest time ahead, 0.07s ahead of Ole Håbjørg.

With the quickest of the Super1600 boys having the worst conditions, fastest time was set by Krzysztof Korupski who shaved 0.08s off Jussi-Petteri Lappihalme’s best effort to go top of the class. In the rain, championship leader Andreas Bakkerud could do no more than 29th, 5.5s off the pace. The results promises to make the first heat interesting…

The rain also appears to have had an effect upon the Supercar order. At the top, Sverre Isachsen set fastest time after a long conversation with Petter Solberg resulted in the champion deciding to use a set of brand new Pirelli rain tyres, “I’ve used them once before and they are very good, but it’s not easy to decide now,” said Isachsen before his lap.

René Münnich who claimed his ‘motivation is zero’ after a troubled free practice dug deep and came up with a fine second place, ahead of Jean-Luc Pailler, Andy Scott and round four winner Mats Lysen. The first heat here too, could quite a thing to behold.

Adding his name to the list of retirements from the event, Zdeněk Čermák is out after gearbox failure in his Super1600 Škoda.

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