We had already predicted before the race that the track would be bumpy and difficult to drive when it has not rained in southern Sweden for a long time, and it is really dry in the ground.
There were two practice rounds and then we already knew that the gridiron was a good qualifying tire at this track so we tested the Impact of preparation for the finals, and after testing the super-soft in the first practice we changed to soft when the SS was warm and the car was hard to drive after a couple of minutes.
We also practiced with a new 7-port engine, just to have an extra engine fresh as a reserve. After the training sessions so we changed back to the 5-Port.
The setup of the car was David´s new standard setup (after Worlds) and we did not change anything during the weekend.
In the first qualification round David drove as expected … fast and really good and he won the round with 23 seconds with lap times 1,5 seconds better than the others.
In the second round as he continued with GridIrion Soft and started with 3 superfast laps together with the fasters of the weekend, but then pulled down the tempo to a safe tempo as the track already started to become difficult to drive.
He also won this round, now with nine seconds, and while most were driving a little slower so he lowered his lap time by 0.5 seconds further.
Before the third round he desire to test I-Beam, Soft, which I did not understood as he never has run well and fast with these tires, but he is the driver as he make his decisions.
Just as I predicted it went not so well with these tires and now he finished 2nd in the round.
In the fourth round so he was back on GridIrion, soft (after finding that he was wrong) and although the track was now miserable to drive he gave away with a great run and also won this round and then secured overall TQ.
In Sunday's semi-practice, it was focused on testing the tires for the final, and that was Impact Medium which we thought most of. The tires worked really well and the practice also and he had no problem to run 10:30 on the engine.
In the semifinal, it was first intended that he would continue with the gridiron as the qualifiers, but then we thought it was better to drive with same tires as final he roll out on the Impact that he had driven in the semi-practice. In the semifinal he was driving as expected and he had kept a good pace and won the semifinal 18 seconds before the second car.
Then it was time for the finals and although we could easily run 9min refueling we chose the safe way and desired to refuel at 7:30 as one refueling more would not do so much.
David made a great start and immediately began to build up a distance back, but after eight laps, he said he thought the glue on the right front tire was a bit loose and he wanted a new tire at the refueling. He made some fast laps to increase the distance to the cars behind and on lap 12 he came in for refueling and we also changed the tire. The change cost about 10 seconds and he came out as a 3 and after the cars in front had refueled, he was basically caught up with them.
A few laps later he had passed cars in front of him and again he started to build a distance back. We knew that 3:d had one fuel stop less and I thought it might be tight, but when Davis ran stable with very few mistakes and good lap times the distance increased all the time. After about 30 minutes it was all lapped.
The most surprising thing that happened was when he crashed out on the straight on one lap, but when I asked afterward what happened he said he heard that several cars crashed in another part of the track and he was forced to watch to see which cars it was :-)
After 45 minutes, crossed the finish line after a pretty boring final without any fight for first place. David thinks that it is difficult to keep focused for so long and still keep a slightly lower pace compared to a race where it is fighting for the places.
In conclusion, it was a good win because we are not going to run next race in the cup as we will be at the 1/10 Pre-Worlds in Finland, so the next race will be round 3. The tire losing in the final was completely my fault, but my excuse is that I had annoying allergies in my eyes all weekend and had trouble see things clearly.
Next race will be 1/10 Pre-Worlds in Finland.
