Jan-Moritz Kammann took a dominant win in GPO’s inaugral Bahrain GP in the main challenge event on Saturday. Kammann won by 30 seconds from Drazon Cokor and Stuart Fields snuck home in third.

The stage was set for a dramatic opener around the newly redesigned Bahraini circuit and with Kammann on pole with Camilo Nino alongside it was looking set for an almight duel. The midfield looked particularly tight with 5th Jody Fannin to Brian Oates 14th seperated by just 0.7 of a second.

However on the off it was all to come crashing down for Nino. Who touched who didn’t matter but Nino’s hopes of victory were out the window and onto the dirt track, along with Rothmans duo Graham Dickinson and the perennially unlucky Keith Doherty, who were both caught up in the melee and was out. Also joining them on the sidelines would be Rizwan Sarwar & Sven Smits for European F1 and Jordon Norwood for Deletraz BMB. 5 down, 17 remaining.

Next to go would be Heniz Vanderhoydonck from accident damage and then Erik Brodan for Redspeed Sweeden would follow suit, although he had looked uncomfortable all weekend. He would quickly be joined in the sand traps by his teammate Fredrick Arbegard with an uncharacteristic DNF.

However as they went off two by two, Jan-Moritz Kammann was going from strength to strength and was busy dragging teammate Mikael Folcher along for the ride as the two battled hard for the lead for Millenium Racing. Third was a delighted Mihajlo Vicentijevic however he too would over do it and crash out – the new section proving extra tricky for the drivers. This allowed Drazon Cokor into third with Ari Kesseli and Stuart Fields having a ding-dong battle over fourth and fifth.

Furtherback more action was unfolding as Benjamin Chong recovered from earlier drama’s to overtake first Erick Davis, then Brian Oates and finally Jody Fannin to find himself back in the points. He shouldn’t have worried however…

Ben Ross had retired with technical difficulties for OrangeTech before teammate Brian Cowley, new to this type of racing found  himself a working experiment that tarmac is better than gravel! With both OrangeTech’s out, it was a bad day for Williamson Dynamic related teams with Camilo Nino finally ending what had been a miserable day in the wall too. He had been suffering from food poisoning and one had hoped he’d not done a Mark Webber…

Up front however Kammann remained unfazed even with Michael Folcher refusing to let up. The pair had opened a massive gap over the battling Kesseli and Fields and it was heading for a great show down. Folcher was one stopping and Kammann was two. Kammann came in for his second but had not pulled out enough of a gap and Folcher retook the lead. It was going to have to be decided on the track… that was until Michael Folcher suffered terrible luck and retired due to technical difficulties! What rotten luck.

Jan breathed a sigh of relief and then gave us the fastest lap for good measure before crossing the line to win the Bahrain GP. Drazen Cokor stayed out of trouble to claim an impressive second while in the last few laps Fields dived passed Kesseli taking third away from the Finn and giving GRIDLine a third podium slot in the weekend.

Jamie Rush had been quiet most of the race but came home a well deserved fifth ahead of Benjamin Chong who recovered to sixth despite many problems early on. Jody Fannin came home seventh meaning R&S Motorsports were the only team to get a double finish and points for both. Brian Oates gave his usual steady and dependable performance to claim eighth and some valuable points early on while the final finisher was Erick Davis after three stops and being lapped four times.

So Jan has laid the gauntlet down for everyone at Melbourne and it will be interesting to see how everyone, especially teammate Folcher, will react. As a great lyric once said “Kammann if you think you’re hard enough!”

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