Blackwood Grand Prix in sunny England played host for round 2 of the GT Series tonight. This round saw some new improvements to the series. Our newly confirmed partnership with Alien Serve allows us to offer a prize to the overall driver championship winner. the46 also broadcasted this round live. All the drivers were hoping to put on a good show and earn some much needed points in these early rounds of the season.
spdoRacing’s Heikki Jaakkola was able to capitalise on his round 1 success and claimed pole with a new lap record of 1:12.570. The flying Finn looked on form. Championship contender Roland Osza set a 1:12.82, this was good enough to secure the second place on the gird and put much needed pressure on Heikki. New comer, K. Kerekes had a very successful series debut. The Hungarian clinched the third spot with a time of 1:12.91.
The first race of the evening was a 12 lap sprint race. With both championship contenders going door to door into the challenging turn one it was always going to be interesting. H. Jaakkola managed to hold onto his first position and drove a very consistent race. Heikki claimed the first win of the night, and yes, he set the fastest lap too! Second on the podium was the Latino CoRe driver, Dennis Lind. Dennis had a very successful drive fighting his was from his 9th place qualifying position. DISCoRe’s Roland Osza took the third spot and gained some much needed points to keep him in the running for the driver championship.
The final race of the evening was the 24 lap feature race. Once again, the track was very hard wearing on the tyres. Car setup would play a large part in this race. This race also features a full reverse grid from the sprint race. This put Yann Laprevotte on pole, followed by his former teammate S.Stankevičius. FUBAR Racing’s Keith Newton started third. Heikki Jaakkola of spdoRacing started on the 19th spot but he had already tasted success and wanted more. He drove a flawless race fighting his way through the entire field. Unsurprisingly he finished 1st with a 6 second lead over 2nd, he also set the fastest lap of the race. This would have seen Heikki leave the Blackwood circuit with full points for the evening but unfortunately he incurred a 2 point penalty for incorrect name format. Second went to K. Kerekes of the 4 Stroke Racing Team. Having suffered a disappointing retirement in the sprint race, his second place in the feature race confirmed a fantastic debut for the driver. I’m sure we will see more of him in the coming rounds. ConeDodgers driver, T. Iivonen, took the last spot on the podium. T. Iivonen has had a difficult start to the season but never count this driver out. He was extremely fast in pre-season testing. Another driver who I am sure will be fighting at the top soon.
Overall a very successful 2nd round to the season. spdoRacing can be very happy with themselves. Heikki Jaakkola of spdoRacing has now extended his lead in the driver championship by 20 points over his nearest rival Roland Osza. spdoRacing have also managed to overtake DISCoRe in the team championship, spdo are currently leading that by a margin of 5 points. spdoRacing take both Driver of the day and Team of the day honours.
Round 3 takes us to South City. I'm sure we will see some twists and turns in the championship battle there!
H.Jaakola holds his line going into turn one.