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Round 2 - Brazil (Interlagos) |
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At midday the breeze had calmed and the cloud cover was beginning to break as the 6 Pro Series cars lined up on the starting grid. Mario Sarno and Gary Leighton, separated by one tenth of a second, were a convincing 1.5 seconds ahead of McCandless in third. As the cars took their positons on the line Mark Butler had already gone further than his first race in Australia but he was starting last following problems in qualifying had prevented him setting a time. Michael Kane was a non-starter with a blown engine in morning practice.
As the lights went out Leighton got the jump on Sarno and streaked past through the Senna S as Sindalsen in his debut race passed McCandless for third. On lap 3 Butler, after a poor start, passed both Leroy and then McCandless followed by a passing manouvere on Sindalsen which saw the Danish Alliance GP driver off onto the grass where he dropped to 6th. Leighton then missed his braking point into the last corner and ploughed onto the outfield, rejoining 5th.
Lap 6 saw Champ Leroy take third from McCandless while on the next lap Sarno spun at the first corner rejoining 3rd behind a charging Butler and Leroy. Sarno then recovered 2nd from Leroy fairly easily while Leighton was staging an effective recovery - passing both McCandless and Leroy on lap 9. Seeing his team-mate's apparent extra speed Butler waved Sarno past into the lead only to find himself back in the lead again a few laps later after a string of poor times from Sarno.
On lap 16 Butler made an error of his own and missed a corner allowing Sarno back into the lead just before the pit stops. By the time everyone had completed their stops Sarno emerged in the lead from Butler and Leighton. However an error from Butler allowed Leighton to get 2nd back again although Butler fought back, the two cars passing and re-passing each other a few times in the next few laps. However as the pair came across the crawling machine of McCandless who was heading to the pits to retire after a couple of previous visits for repairs on lap 35 Leighton found himself baulked and Butler blasted past him to take second for good behind Sarno who romped to the flag with a hint of surprise as he summed up his race afterwards - "I made a couple of mistakes early on including a pretty major spin but everyone else seemed to make more mistakes than me..."