DTC: Jyllands-Ringen qualifying report/results

Touringcar Racing - June 9th 2001 - Danish Touringcar Championship:

Magnussen clinches first pole position in DTC

Big Mag came out on top following an intensive timed practice session During the 20 minute timed practice session for Sunday's third round of the Danish Touringcar Championship at Jyllands-Ringen a total of eight drivers managed to hold pole position provisionally. In the end, however, it was ALMS Panoz driver Jan Magnussen who finished on top.

"I am very satisfied," Magnussen said after the session, in which he managed to lap faster and faster towards the end.

"Things really started working for me, and I got a far better balance in the car. I choose to drive different lines to what I usually have been doing in a front-wheel-drive car at this circuit, and that helped. Tomorrow, it is vital to survice the sprint, and then I hope that the modifications that we are going to make will give us the required speed through the final."

Team Brask driver Casper Elgaard was the closest driver to Magnussen, but unlike "Big Mag" he did not manage to get below the magic 49 second barrier.

"Unlike Jan I am carrying 25 kgs of ballast, and that of course has some effect, but I still believe that I could have been closer to him," Elgaard said. "Unfortunately I did the mistake to pit to late for new tyres, as I would have needed another two laps to get them up to perfect working temperature."

On overall terms it was a good day for Team Brask, as their other drivers, Gunnar Kristensen, Kent Bo Lauridsen and Carsten Leveau finished in fourth, fifth and tenth place in the ultra competitive practice session. The top 12 qualifyers were within one second, while less that two seconds cover the top 21 cars on the grid.

The McDonald's Nissan twins of John Nielsen and Thorkild Thyrring qualified only ninth and 14th, but nevertheless Super John was happy with the result.

"We hadn't expected more, for this is a Peugeot circuit, and presently we don't have the right weapon against them, so tomorrow's race will be a question of putting in some consistent laps and then hope for trouble further up the field," John Nielsen said.

While Welshman Julian Westwood did not manage to record a time due to a technical problem with his Renault Megane Estate, interim team-mate Philippe Favre qualified 19th for Sunday's 27 car grid.

"I am improving myself, and we have been making a few changes to the car," the Swiss explains. "The car seems to be better, but we still have to work with it. The car has been understeering, but it has improved at lot, and the car could probably lap five or six tenths of a second quicker, so that we could end in the top 10." <pre> Result of qualifying for round 3 of the Danish Touringcar Championship:

1.    Jan Magnussen        Peugeot Statoil Motorsport   Peugeot 306 GTI         48,776
2.    Casper Elgaard       Team Brask                   Peugeot 306 GTI         49,068
3.    Michael Carlsen      Michael Carlsen              Peugeot 306 GTI         49,144
4.    Gunnar Kristensen    Team Brask                   Peugeot 306 GTI         49,148
5.    Kent Bo Lauridsen    Team Brask                   Peugeot 306 GTI         49,170
6.    Mike Legarth         Legarth Racing Team          BMW 320i                49,321
7.    Jesper Sylvest       Sylvest Motorsport           CitroEBn Xsara CoupE9 VTS 49,321
8.    Jason Watt           Peugeot Statoil Motorsport   Peugeot 306 GTI         49,369
9.    John Nielsen         McDonald's Nissan Racing     Nissan Primera          49,485
10.   Carsten Leveau       Team Brask                   Peugeot 406 CoupE9      49,652

-DTC-