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DTC: Sturup Raceway race report
Michel Nykjær ends bad luck series The Seat driver won the first DTC round at the new Sturup Raceway Following a very disappointing start to the season Michel Nykjær finally ended the series of bad luck which has been hitting him so ...
Edited: Jun 30, 2009, 5:54 AM
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Michel Nykjær ends bad luck series
The Seat driver won the first DTC round at the new Sturup Raceway
Following a very disappointing start to the season Michel Nykjær finally ended the series of bad luck which has been hitting him so far this year. On the new Sturup Raceway in Southern Sweden close to the Danish capital the Seat Toledo driver took a deserved win from defending champion Casper Elgaard and thus climbed from eleventh to sixth place in the championship positions.
"It was so nice finally to show everybody what we might have done several times this year," the happy winner said afterwards. But it was a tough afternoon, which did not start very well with just seventh best time in the Super Pole session.
"My lap time was half a second slower than yesterday under qualifying, and if I had repeated that time, I would have started second. I made a minor mistake while braking, which was the reason why I ended up where I did. In the pre-final I had to fight very much, but that was expected on a narrow circuit, which makes overtaking difficult."
Michel Nykjær managed to fight from seventh to fifth place in the pre-final, which as ever was filled with incidents aplenty. Jan Magnussen took the lead from the word go, and the Le Mans GT1 winner managed to extend that to a couple of seconds at the chequered flag. The early challenge came from John Nielsen, but as the BMW driver had had contact with Jan Magnussen, he was given a penalized to pass through penalty lane. But upon receiving this penalty John Nielsen promptly drove to the pit instead to climb out of his car and call it a day!
Michel Nykjær was untouchable in the final. Jens Edman made the best getaway but could not squeeze in between front row men Michel Nykjær and Martin Pedersen, and instead he had to defend second place from the attacks of Casper Elgaard. However, the Swede's getaway had been a little bit too optimistic, so he was given a 20 second penalty which sent him down into seventh place, which meant that Casper Elgaard could extend his championship lead to 23 points!
Several privateers managed to mix it with the pros during the races at the new Danish-owned circuit. Best man was Martin Pedersen, whose fourth place in the first race secured him his first ever front row grid place.
"I was very balanced about the situation. I had discussed it with the team members, and we had decided to go for points in the privateers cup and keep out of trouble," Martin Pedersen said.
"In that situation on the grid you look over your shoulder at what is coming, but it did not last long until I got into a position where I could keep up my speed without being put under pressure, and actually the two races were the easiest of my career!"
Behind Martin Pedersen there was a stern battle to become runner-up among the privateers. Former double champion Michael Carlsen succeeded in keeping newcomer Rene Rasmussen, and that made Michael Carlsen take over the DTC Cup lead from Jens Møller, who like most of the BMW privateers had a disastrous weekend.
Short facts: Sturup Raceway is situated just 25 miles to the east of Copenhagen, and thus it is the closest a racing circuit has been to the Danish capital since the closure of Roskilde Ring in 1968. * The circuit was formally opened by former Minardi F1 driver Nicolas Kiesa, who took a high speed ride around the circuit in his road prepared Nissan Skyline. * The opening ceremony was concluded by Jan Magnussen doing laps in a Panoz LMP01 Roadster.
-dtc-
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