Archive for the ‘GPO Challenge’ Category

Hennings Cordes takes the fourth win of the season and proves that winning in GPO Challenge is very reminiscent of the old party game “pass the parcel”

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And so we move to Malysia were it was all change at the top again. A third winner in as many races…

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As we make a long overdue catch up with the fantastic GPO Challenge series, we make whistlestop reviews of each race and evaluate – will there be a changing of the guard as Jan-Moritz Kammann finds his early lead under attack left, right and centre? This is part one of four seperate articles about GPO Challenge that will be published over the next four days…

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After a quick Sprint Press Conference, the three podium finishers from the Challenge series join us for the press conference A welcome to race-winner Tom Eley, second place driver Mickael Folcher for GRIDline Racing and rounding up the podium for Milennium Racing, Jan-Moritz Kammann.

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After the Australian Grandprix, the three podium finishers joined the press in the post race press conference.  First place finisher David Dominguez of GRIDline Racing UK, second place finisher Redspeed GrandPrix’s Muhammed Patel,and third place finisher, Rothmans Canon Racing’s 3 team driver Drazen Cokor.

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After an eventfull race in Bahrain, where Kammann and Rice took the first wins in the Challenge and Sprint series, the field now gets ready for round two of the championship. And what a venue this is promising to get.

The Track

Traditionally the Australian Grand Prix was the season opener of the Formula 1. This year however, the first venue was in the desert of Bahrain.
The semi-street circuit in Melbourne, running besides a big lake, is 5.303 meters long and counts sixteen corners. Ten of them turn right, leaving 6 left handed corners.
The Challenge series will run 58 laps, the sprint series will do 29. Qualifying starts at 19:45 GMT on Saturday for the Challenge series, race start is scheduled at 20:30 GMT.
The Sprint series will race Sundays, where qualifying starts at 10:00 GMT, the race will go green at 10:45 GMT.

The Race

There are quite a few drivers looking for the win in Australia. Some of them had a disappointing race in Bahrein, like Camillo Nino who struggled a lot during the race. Others are looking to match their result
in Australia. Drazen Cokor for example found himself on the second spot on the podium last race, sure a place he didn’t expect to be in on forehand. Kammann however is looking to expand his lead by winning his second Grand Prix this season.

In the Sprint series Malcolm Rice is the man to beat. After a stunning drive in Bahrain, his main contenders are looking to finish in front of him, making sure he doesn’t increase his lead over 2nd place man Nick Oldenhuis and third place finisher Michael Pieneman. Ed Wiliams however is looking for his first finish of the season, after showing great driving in Bahrain, where he got into an accident and unfortunately had to retire.

Make sure you tune in to PSRTV this Saturday to follow the race LIVE.

The broadcast starts at 19:45 GMT.

Don’t miss it!

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!”