Raining champion

Isachsen, Bakkerud and Častoral fastest in wet first heat.

At the end of a topsy-turvy, rain affected first heat, Sverre Isachsen emerged with fastest time, 0.1s ahead of compatriot Mats Lysen with Jean-Luc Pailler and Liam Doran – opposite ends of the championship’s age spectrum – upholding European honour against the Scandinavians and placing third and fourth, ahead of Frenchman Davy Jeanney.

This was, by and large, a wet session. Officially it certainly was. But while there was never a lot of rain falling, it varied between a mist of light rain and no rain at all. The track remained treacherously slippery throughout and caught a few napping.

The biggest incident of the heat came at the end of the Super1600 races when Jussi-Petteri Leppihalme, Michaela Kalná, Stanislav Šusta and Ondřej Smetana all went off the road after a clash of wheels and wills in the run from the grid. Leo van der Eijk was the only starter not to get involved, but did not benefit as there was a red flag. Only Leppihalme made it back to the grid and then took an easy win as Van der Eijk’s MINI proved not to be that adventurous. While Leppihalme set third fastest time, it was Andreas Bakkerud, starting early in the session, who sprinted up the order and set fastest time ahead of Krzyzstof Skorupski.

The shock of the heat came among the TouringCars where Roman Častoral was magnificent in the rain and posted a time two-seconds faster than Lars Øivind Enerberg could manage to top the order. Anton Marklund continues to impress and emerged third fastest, albeit a further four-seconds down on Enerberg.

The Supercars were on tippy toes and it was an absolute knife edge between staying on the track and slipping off it. Among those who slipped were Jos Jansen who was sucked into the turn one sand trap while René Münnich, Frode Holte and Andy Scott all suffered spins. Fastest in practice, Morten Bermingrud had little joy in the heat, losing his race lead to Liam Doran after sliding wide. The clear winner in the first of the Supercar races, Guttorm Lindefjell bounced into eighth place and will be with the quick guys tomorrow, for which more rain is forecast…

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