Detail

published: 2011-08-27 14:54:04 (59369) Author: Oli_M

Lee Martin secures pole!

Three drivers make 12 lap runs in final qualifier!
British driver Lee Martin has secured pole from which to defend his 4WD European title.

He topped the round from Hupo Honigl and Jorn Neumann, the only three drivers to make 12 lap runs here this week. Both Jorn and Hupo appeared faster at different points of their runs, but issues in traffic for Hupo and a roll on the final lap for Jorn gave Lee the best time by over 2 seconds in the end.
Crucially, this gave Lee the same score overall as Jorn, but the faster time in the final round proved the deciding tie break. Jorn secured second on the grid from Hupo.

With these three drivers notably quicker than the rest, the only other driver able to challenge for pole going into the last round was Neil Cragg. But Neil was late to the grid, had to start last and then got caught up with backmarkers.
Martin Kreil went fourth in the round to secure his A Final place, Viktor Wilck continued his good runs with a fifth place, ahead of his teammate Marc Rheinard. It was a case of "what might have been" for Ellis Stafford, netting a seventh in the round but that was too little, too late, to get him into the A.

It was a similar story for Rene Trauner who was eighth in the round. Grant Williams took ninth in the round to bump into the A, with French driver Armand Lantheaume tenth.
A FINAL LINE UP

1 LEE MARTIN - GB - Tamiya / Speed Passion - 2 Points 2 Jorn Neumann - DE - Durango / Speed Passion - 2 3 Hupo Honigl - AT - Durango / LRP - 5 4 Viktor Wilck - SE - 8 5 Neil Cragg - GB - 10 6 Marc Rheinard - DE - 11 7 Paul Bradby - GB - 12 8 Peter Pinisch - AT - 12 9 Martin Kreil - AT - 13 10 Grant Williams - GB - 17