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Round 2 - Brazil (Interlagos) |
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By the time the main event came around the fierce South American sun had started to bake the crowd. However a storm was brewing in the pit-lane with Marco Saupe raising hell over the fact the electrical problem which had kept his Typhoon F1 team from making it's debut in Australia had reared it's head again and prevented himself and Kai Weber from making their 6th and 9th grid positions.
As the remaining 8 cars rolled out to take their grid positions a familiar sight from last year met the crowd's gaze in that Jan Svehlik had returned and his Bolgani sat on pole, devoid of any Wild 13 insignia this season. Continuing his impressive rookie season, Thomas Bodlien lined up 2nd ahead of Maltez and Ziarnik.
At the start Svehlik immediately pulled away from the rest as Bodlien and Maltez bogged down, allowing Mike Hogg and Mirko Patzenbein's Arado dive past for 2nd and 3rd. Having dropped behind Rafal Ziarnik as well, Bodlien repassed him on lap 2 whilst on the next lap Patzenbein slid off the greasy track to allow Bodlien and Maltez back past him.
On lap 4 Hogg made an error coming out of the final bend onto the huge pit straight allowing Bodlien and Maltez to get alongside and for one brief moment all three were side by side as they crossed the finish line, Bodlien and Maltez making it stick and Hogg dropping two places. A lap later Maltez performed the same move on Bodlien to steal 2nd while further back Anthony Long pushed past Ziarnik for 6th.
Lap 7 and Svehlik found himself a commanding 5 seconds ahead of Maltez, Bodlien, Patzenbein and Hogg who at this point were all covered by a second! How the four of them managed to dice cleanly with each other for 4 laps is anyones guess but an offtrack excursion from Patzenbein dropped him behind Hogg who then found himself right behind Maltez who had been re-passed by Bodlien earlier. To make things even more confusing the bunch came across Stephen Wallace to lap him and Maltez lost out, a quick spin dropping him to 5th place. Patzenbein was the first to pit on lap 18 for D's while Hogg came in 3 laps later. After all the stops had panned out on lap 28 Svehlik was miles up the road from Bodlien, Hogg and Patzenbein.
Having closed up slowly for a few laps, Hogg outbraked Bodlien at the end of the pit straight for second on lap 31 only to lose it again on lap 33 to the same move at the same place. Seeing the battle ahead of him, Patzenbein decided to make his second stop on lap 35. Maybe trying too hard, Hogg spun on lap 41 and dropped behind Bodlien and Ziarnik, but he retook the Yapamotox on the next lap before pitting for fresh tyres.
Lap 47 saw the Potato Racers car of Anthony Long lunch it's engine in a spectacular cloud of thick white smoke which also laid down a large amount of oil in the Senna S. Patzenbein was first to fall foul of the slick and he lost a place to Hogg, only to regain it before the end of the lap. Bodlien was next to hit the oil on lap 51 and his sideways moment allowed the consistant Ziarnik to take 2nd place. On lap 60 Hogg missed a gear coming onto the back straight allowing Maltez and Patzenbein to get past.
Six laps later Bodlien was out for good with a seized gearbox from 6th. No problems at all for Svehlik allowed him to cross the line a full minute and a half from Ziarnik. "I beat my time from last year so I feel very lucky," grinned the modest returnee. Ziarnik too was a happy boy. "My own performance was not brilliant but I have to thank my pit crew chief for making some good calls for stops while I was in traffic. That saved me a lot of time."
6 seconds further back Patzenbein made a triumphant return to the series, giving rookie team Arado a podium in their first race. Another 11 seconds down the road Hogg just crossed the line a tenth of a second ahead of Maltez. "I'm fairly happy with the result," claimed the Team Ecosse driver, "Interlagos isn't really one of my favourite tracks - I'm looking forward to San Marino though." The points kept him at the top of the table. Maltez too could be content with his performance, deplacing Bodlien for 2nd in the Championship. Stephen Wallace was the only other finisher, 3 laps down in 6th.