Spa-Francorchamps: Selected drivers quotes PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andreas Hultgren   
Saturday, 18 September 2010 11:42

Ben Buitendijk, The Black Rebels - 7th
What a hard race! I hoped for a better result and I think I had the pace, but in quali I used wet tires, so I made a bad time (I was 1 second faster on race setting with softs...). Then the race went pretty well, but I ruined my pitstops, on both the engine didn't start directly and on the second stop I was waiting 10 seconds without confirming... Had some cool battles, thanks to Simon Melhuish and a COR driver (Cambia I think?) and some more guys, but those where really cool!

 

Theo de Bruin, Blue Flag Racing - DNF

Well, this was easily my worst race ever! Luckily I was not the only one struggling. Started with hitting someone in the warm up lap, really sorry about that. I was driving and I checked my speed and all of a sudden there were a bunch of cars almost standing still in front of me and all over the track (it seemed) so I hit one of the Gubbklubben cars I think. Luckily we could both continue. Started out OK and even got in some kind of rythm but when the rain started and stopped and started and stopped and started and... etc. I began to struggle. After I changed to wets and wanted to go back to soft again I couldn't change my presets so I was struggling with that. I was all over the track running in last position, at one point I even got stuck in one of the boards... 8 minutes before the finish I crashed again and decided to stop, my car was also damaged. SO a near finish for me...

 

Rickard Hellsten, Torrent Motorsports - 2nd

Very exciting race today. I'm not a big fan of rain, and I think I showed that in qualifying with a P14, not sure when I had such a bad qualifying run in a GT or Touring car series. Start was a bit messy, cars everywere and I took it very very easy, to not go off track or hit anyone. After a few laps I had to start moving, made a few passes, and got up to a solid 6th before my pitstop. Made a pretty poor pitstop, but somehow I was 1st after everyone had done thier stops. Last stop I took one lap to late, was soo soo slippery, went off after the Cammel straight, but manage to get back to pit with minimal time lost. Mikko passed me in the last stop, wasn't able to keep up with him, so decided to take it safe and bring the car home!

 

Simon Melluish, Torrent Motorsports - 10th

Well I got called into the car when Danny was having issues with his game. I had only had a few laps practice so having to qualify in the wet was somewhat challenging... I managed 17th or something. Not much really happened in race, a few offs here and there but I was expecting this due to lack of preparation. So finishing 10th was good for me and the team, even though I threw away a 9th place finish on final lap.

 

David Zafiu, Motor AG Motorsport - 12th

I qualified in 8th place. After first laps I managed to go up on 4th but my tyres weren't the good ones as when the session changed I forgot to look and change them again so I was running hard tyres on wet. It was like hell after lap 6 I think so I started to lose places and made my first pitstop in lap 11 when I was on place 7th I think. I changed the tyres with soft ones as outside was getting dry and clear sky, but after only 2 laps of Soft tyres, suddenly started to rain again and my race pace was compromised. When we got at the half of the race I started to lose lots of places and find myself in 14th. I was like on ice, spin after spin. So I decided to pit again. This wasn't in the strategy [...] so a screwd up race. At least I managed to get my self up to 12 in last laps from 15.

 

Mikko Korkiakoski, FlatOut Racing - 1st

What a race this was for me. It's hard to describe the emotions I went through in this one. Anyway here's my few thoughts on the race. I managed to get the pole with a good quali strategy. My lap in general was very poor and I was really surprised to see my name on top. So I was very excited to start on pole the first time. As it happens my luck ran out there and as some of you saw Peter crashed into my rear in T1 and I fell down to P9. I had to work hard to get through the guys again but eventually I was able to climb back position after position. When the 1st pit cycle started I went to change to new dry tires which was a mistake as the rain just intensified and I had to go back and change to wets. The wets however were only good for few laps since now it was starting to get dry again. So I just patiently waited for the track to dry enough so I could go back to dry tires again. I saw Rickard was around 40 seconds behind me so my stop would have to be good. All went well and I managed to keep my lead and then after settling to the new tires it was an easy job to first make a bit of a gap and the just cruise safely to my first ever STC victory!

 

Göran Johansson, Gubbklubben.se - 11th

In qualifying I was a little coward and ran with wet tyres. 10th place was ok. The race started well, knew that I was fast but had no rush, it's 90 minutes of racing. After 7-8laps in Eau Rouge I screwed up and touched the wall, hurry into the pits because I had a puncture. On with four new tyres. I accidently put on the wrong tyres - wet. In and switch to back to soft. When I came out it was obviously going to rain again. Drove a lot of laps, was hoping it would stop raining but it did not. Eventually I went into pit and put on wets and when I go out of the pits the sun came back. I drove the last stint on slicks and climbed to 11th. It was my first race in STCand it was chaos all the time when I was constantly on the wrong tyres. And when I was on the right tyres I was behind the leaders and it was nice tobe behind to not destroy for them. Sodespite all the mistakes and missery it was really fun.