The last round of the
Tiger Express Z30 Festival took place on the longest layout of
PMD’s open configurations pack,
Kyoto International GT Long(
KY33). Even with LFS’ second fastest ever car – the FO8 – no one could lap this layout in less than 3 minutes and 12 seconds.
The race was dominated by poleman Rudy van Buren and 4th place starter Simon Cattell. The latter managed to pass both
Matias Pikkarainen and
Philip Ellis in the opening corners, and chased his Dutch
ineX team-mate for the whole race, without ever managing to make a pass.
Van Buren eventually won, 4 tenths in front of
Cattell, with the two of them also sharing the fastest lap of the race(3:12:64).
Philip Ellis completes the podium after a lonely race in 3rd, and makes an
ineX Racing 1-2-3.
Matias Pikkarainen(
spdo Racing) and
Phil Diaz(
ineX Racing) round up the top 5 after a rather uneventful race for both.
Things were a bit more difficult for the championship contenders. After a difficult qualifying session(8th),
Joe Holmes span at lap 1 and dropped to 10th, putting his championship chances under danger. Fortunately for him, his team-mate
Teemu Iivonen wasn’t in a good day, and blew his last chances in a spin from 4th at lap 4. Both
ineX cars were nose to tail while
Teemu recovered, but the Finish driver managed to pull away from
Joe, taking 6th, while the young Englishman settled in 7th and secured the title.
The top 10 is completed by season long mid-field animators:
Martin Kapal(
Angel Power Racing),
Yann Laprevotte(
Tiger Express Motorsports) and
Ditlev Errebo(
DABAR Racing).
At the drivers’ championship,
ineX succeeded to have 5 of their drivers in the top 5.
Joe Holmes becomes champion of the
Tiger Express Z30 Festival with 1 win and 3 podiums. The Englishman started the season on a high with a win in the STD round 1, and then managed to capitalise on that victory to control his team-mates’ return. Season long challenger
Teemu Iivonen takes 2nd(4 podiums), in front of
Simon Cattell(1 podium), who saved his season in the last round.
Phil Diaz is 4th with 1 podium, while
Rudy van Buren finished his rather “all-or-nothing” season(3 wins and 2 retirements in 5 races) in 5th place. “Best of the rest” is
Matias Pikkarainen(
spdo Racing, 1 win) in 6th, in front of
Dennis Lind(Dennis .Inc, 1 win, 3 podiums),
Yann Laprevotte(
Tiger Express Motorsports),
Ditlev Errebo(
DABAR RAcing) and
Martin Kapal(
Angel Power Racing).
With no surprise
ineX Racing comes on top of the teams’ championship, with almost 2 times more points than their closest rival. It wasn’t totally a Sunday drive for them though, with very tough opposition at times(
Kliaudaitis,
Lind,
Pikkarainen,
Kööts).
ineX still managed to get an amazing record of 4 wins and 13 podiums in 6 races, a fabulous performance. Being them comes the group for 2nd place with
spdo Racing(1 win, 2 podiums),
Tiger Express Motorsports and
Angel Power Racing. 1 car entry
Dennis .inc(1 win, 3 podiums) completes the top 5.
Standings |
Some pictures
Full article with drivers quotes on www.tigerexpress.net