Friday’s two qualifying sessions ended with Thomas Lindström laying down a marker to the competition by taking first spot from Jimmy Ålund in the last pair.
Conrad Stanley suffered engine damage and will start Saturday
with a spare engine borrowed from team-mate Tommy Leindahl. The team believe that this engine
is capable of putting them in the game on Sunday, but they have no setup
data for the engine in this car.
With everything being a best guess, they have their fingers crossed
that they guess right.
Saturday had two more qualifying rounds, the first of which
resulted in improvements for Jimmy and Jonas, moving into 1st
and 7th spots. In
the second qualifier, almost all improved on their times but only Micke
Callin gained a position change from 4th to
3rd. Outside the
bump spot, and not qualified for Sunday’s race were Tommy Leindahl, Ulf
Wagnhester and Conrad Stanley.
Sunday Elimination 1
Michael Malmgren was paired against Richard Sundblom in the
first round. It promised a
race between Michael’s consistency and Richard’s top-end speed, but the
battle never materialised as Richard red lit out of
competition.
Second pair was Thomas Lindström and Jonas Dantanus, with
Thomas prevailing over a deep-staged Jonas, the rookie again advancing
through the first round.
In
the next pair, Micke Callin took a bye as Jan Palmqvist was shut down on
the line. No hint of what
happened to Mr Snowball, but the crew had the front off the
car.
Final pair was Jimmy Ålund against Sampsa Palos. Sampsa tried his best and got the
jump on Jimmy off the line, but Jimmy’s power and speed were superior, and
the championship leader progressed one round further than the
second-placed man.
After the first round of eliminations, the championship leader and the men occupying 3rd, 4th and 9th places in the championship were still in the game.
