FNIPPON: Michael Krumm round one race notes

Tough first race for Michael Krumm

Qualifying
Michael qualified for his new team Xbox Impul for the first round in 12th position with a time of 1'44.66, but the German driver was not unduly concerned about his performance - at this early stage of the season.

"Although I would have preferred to be much nearer the front of the grid we understand why we are losing time and think we can continue to improve the car for the rest of the weekend." Michael commented.

Race
From the start Michael, as usual, made places, even having to avoid a stalled car in front of him on the grid and being pushed wide by another car on the first lap. As the race settled down Michael lapped in the top ten, setting competitive times although he was suffering with a little too much under steer. After pitting Michael rejoined in seventh place that he defended for a few laps until his tyres reached operating temperature, when he could pull away from Seji Ara. With his second set of tyres Michael set some very fast laps and felt as if the car was finally working in the correct way. He went on to finish the race in seventh.

"We have to say that this weekend has really been an extended test session, we started with a very big gap from the leaders, about 2.2 seconds, but by the race we had worked out a set up which puts us about 6 to 8 tenths of a second off the pace and I think that most of this is due to the extra weight we have with the older car.

"We are currently working to reduce the weight of the car and close the gap on those drivers using the latest equipment, we have several new parts arriving for the second or third rounds of the championship and I think with the package we have, providing everything goes well we can be right at the front and competitive" commented Michael

-mkr-