Nothing doing

Business as usual with stories under the surface as teams prepare for round seven.

It’s the usual Friday afternoon story at the Eurocircuit, teams busying themselves with final preparation of their cars, drivers getting a look at the track and dealing with the pre-event administration.  Here and there in the paddock there are little stories to be found…

TouringCar champion Derek Tohill and his team are working on a list of improvements to its Ford Fiesta. “We know where we’re losing out and had a big list of jobs to do before the summer break. I’ve worked with Gunnarsson’s to get through some of it, but there’s more to do and it’s a moving target; at this level everyone is pushing hard and the cars are getting better, more developed all the time.

“Koen Pauwels has the latest spec engine now. That’s worth 10bhp and 5lb/ft of torque over what we have. Okay, that’s not everything and I want to sort out some of the other things we have to do before we chase power. My car is too heavy so we’re losing there… But this is the nature of the European championship and it’s what you take on when you come here. I wouldn’t be happy driving round Mondello all the time, so there’s no good giving out about it, I just need to get on and do what’s necessary,” said Tohill who also took time on Friday to introduce his young son to a racecar.

If Tohill’s season is not going exactly to plan, then the unluckiest man on the place has to be Ulrik Linnemann. The young Dane has been in the A final in five of the six events run to date, the only exception being in France where mechanical problems and a black flag saw him go home without points. Despite looking like an event winner a couple of times, Linnemann has yet to break his duck in the ERC and feels hard done by after last weekend’s Super1600 A final in Belgium.

“I think the race should have been stopped immediately after the crash. The Russian guy was stuck in his car with everyone else driving by for four laps. And why no re-run? Normally the race would have been stopped and everyone would go again. I was pushed off and get nothing but it benefit’s [Andreas] Bakkerud again,” said Linnemann who started the A final from pole but, along with Vadim Makarov and Clemens Meyer was shoved off into to the first corner sand trap. When, after four laps, the race was red flagged, it was decided to declare a result and Julian Godfrey took the win.

“That’s racing I suppose, but it does not seem fair to me,” said Linnemann who has spent the day refitting the engine to his Peugeot 207 after it was returned to Denmark this week. “We heard a noise in the engine last week so the safe thing is to check it out. If we break the engine it could take weeks to get the new parts and then we are out for the rest of the year,” he said.

Back in the paddock having missed last weekend’s event in Belgium, OMSE boss Andréas Eriksson is in team manager mode here and not yet sure if he will race again this year. “I don’t know yet, perhaps not. I have been the test driver this year, trying new stuff and also trying to help Tanner [Foust]. Everything got too busy and I never planned to race in Belgium so when I didn’t feel too good the best thing was to stay home. There’s a lot to do now, all this and the X Games and running the business so perhaps it’s best if I’m not here crashing a car too!” he said.

The managerial role is not new for Eriksson; it’s one he has fulfilled in all bar one of the team’s American outings, and he knows he can assist Foust’s game from the off-track position. “You can see in Tanner that he is very quick on the tracks he has been to before; he can win on them. The problem has been that we wanted to test at some of the other tracks but were not able to so he has learn, like last week and again here. I like this track so I think I can help him to get a good setup quickly here,” said Eriksson.

Aside from having mislaid a backpack containing ‘my whole life’ Foust too is in good form ahead of this week’s event and has traded his usual zig-zag across the Atlantic for three days of filming at the Nürburgring. “The place is insane!” said Foust, “I took an RS500 Focus up there [the satin black beast, complete with rollcage sits in the Eurocircuit paddock] and we did a load of filming. It’s difficult to learn but by the end I was going pretty quick, the only to come past me on the last lap was an Evo on slicks but we were way faster than the Porsches and Jags!”

So, pretty much business as usual ahead of action getting started with free practice at 1100 tomorrow morning.

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