Speedgroup Club Europe

The Hockenheim final would have been a pivotal race. Gullqvist carries a 52-point lead over Bader into the European Finals and reaching the semi-final will secure him the title. If Gullqvist were to lose in the second round, Bader would still need to win the race. Final-round victory for either man at Hockenheim would have made the other’s task at Santa Pod so much more difficult.

While the title’s destination rests between Gullqvist and Bader, others will happily throw a spanner in the championship works. Johan Lindberg and Marc Meihuizen are obvious candidates. Both in fact are themselves still in contention for the title but, at 112 and 115 points adrift respectively (maximum available: 123), only theoretically so. A new engine this year for reigning champion Lindberg came good at NDRS Tierp with a 5.922sec ET – only Gullqvist has ever gone quicker. After two mechanically difficult seasons with his new Firebird, Meihuizen has made great strides, clocking a 6.05sec personal best and reaching the semi-finals at Alastaro and here at Hockenheim.

Mats Eriksson

Round one at Hockenheim produced a rare double disqualification. Opponents Mats Eriksson and Adam Flamholc were both expelled after crossing the centre line. Eriksson, Alastaro winner and 2009 FIA champion, is a prime candidate to upset the applecart at the Finals. Flamholc, winner of last year’s Finals with a European-record ET, would have been too but has elected instead to race in America, more’s the pity.

In a season of inconsistency, Urban Johansson gave Hockenheim a flash of his true pace, qualifying third at 6.11 and hitting 6.1’s in the first two rounds before his redlight against Bader. A redlight also eliminated Andy Robinson, for the third race in a row. Hockenheim, however, marked a revival of form: at Tierp and Alastaro, Robinson had qualified in the lower half of the field and exited in the first round; here, he qualified fifth and made it to the semi- before the cherry glowed. The European Finals will be the venerable Studebaker’s last FIA appearance in Robinson’s hands. A ’69 Camaro is promised for 2012.

Another retiree making a swansong visit to the Finals is Rolf Ammann. While the Blown Nugget is well-remembered for clouting track walls and demolishing a Christmas tree, the Swiss racer also reached the Hockenheim final in 2008, losing only to that season’s FIA champion, Mikael Lindahl. With Henri Joosten having left the scene following his car fire at May’s Main Event, 2011 is witnessing the departure of two respected campaigners from the Pro Mod wars.

Linda Thun Tønseth

The year, though, has seen the arrival of a promising Pro Mod newcomer. Ex-Top Fuel driver Linda Thun Tønseth has taken a while to adjust to the demands of handling a Pro Mod (very different, she said at the start of the season) but eclipsed her previous personal bests at Hockenheim to qualify for the first time. Sod’s Law dictated she be drawn against her team owner Urban Johansson in the first round and she duly lost, but her trajectory looks to be on the up. How’s this for an arresting scenario: Linda draws both championship contenders in consecutive rounds at Santa Pod and deals them both out? Stranger things have happened.

The FIA Pro Modified class is sponsored by BILSPORT

Check the full points table under a separate headline.

Round #5 of the FIA Championship, the European Finals is held at Santa Pod Raceway UK sept 9-11th