Time for rain

Rain arrives during the timed practice session.

Timed practice started in the dry but finished in the rain. While the Supercar category got an exclusively wet session and the TouringCar racers got a dry track, the Super1600 field has been nicely shuffled by the changing conditions. There is no surprise in TouringCar, Lars Øivind Enerberg again top of the heap, although only 0.2s ahead of Derek Tohill who is happy here: “I’m just driving for fun, nice and relaxed, no pressure,” said the Irishman. All 17 starters in the class recorded times, so there are no dramas to report.

The Super1600 order looks a little unusual, although Jussi-Petteri Leppihalme has demonstrated his innate speed already this year and is certainly not fastest by sheer luck alone. The Finnish teenager is just 0.05s faster than Polish sensation Krzysztof Skorupski with Czech youngster Ondrej Smetana third from Belgian Andy Martin. Losing out as the track conditions became less favourable, championship leader Andreas Bakkerud is down in 25th place, immediately ahead of Ulrik Linnemann, Clemens Meyer, David Johansson, Ildar Rakhmatullin, Zdenek Cermak and Johan Larsson; the bottom of the timesheet containing names we would more often expect at the top. Four of the 35 straters failed to get a time, the only one of note among them Jaroslav Kalny who, after a tough weekend in Belgium, seems to have found no improvement in fortune here.

Among the Supercar runners, Pavel Koutny set a time but then smacked his Fiesta into the barriers lining the Joker Lap section and was forced to stop because of the resulting suspension damage.

Fastest in the session, and benefitting a little from going early when the conditions were not at their worst, Morten Bermingrud leads the way, his 43.275s lap, a shadfe up on Frenchman Davy Jeanney. Also benefitting here from a relatively high start number, championship leader Timur Timerzyanov is third fastest and – unless the weather is his undoing in the first heat as it has been to his benefit in the timed practice – set fair to continue his impressive season.

Kevin Procter is fourth fastest, just ahead of Tony Bardy Motorsport stablemate Andy Scott, the latter continuing here where he left off last weekend and again at the sharp end. Mats Lysen set sixth fastest time, Liam Doran in seventh the fastest of those to go in the last handful of cars at the end of the hour with the rain hammering down and track conditions at their worst. All 23 starters recorded a time in the session.

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