2011 Supercup Dutch Grand Prix
| Race details | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2011 Supercup season | ||
| ||
| Date | October 12th, 2011 | |
| Official name | 2011 Supercup Dutch Grand Prix | |
| Location | Circuit Park Zandvoort Zandvoort, The Netherlands | |
| Course | Road Course 2.676 mi / 4.307 km | |
| Distance | 35 laps, 93.660 mi / 150.745 km | |
| Weather | Sunny | |
| Pole position | ||
| Driver |  Bart De Vos
|
Malta Force GP |
| Time | 1:18.983 | |
| Fastest Lap | ||
| Driver |  David Jundt
|
Nijo Racing |
| Time | 1:19.823 | |
| Podium | ||
| First | Bart De Vos
|
Malta Force GP |
| Second |  Jason Muscat
|
Globe Racing |
| Third |  Tom Parker
|
Kernow Sport |
The 2011 Supercup Dutch Grand Prix was the 19th race of the season and was won by Bart De Vos.
Contents
Report
After narrowly missing out on sealing the 2011 Supercup Driver's championship at Spa-Francorchamps the previous week, championship leader Bart De Vos knew that Zandvoort should, and would be the place to carve his name into GPVWC Supercup history, and take his first driver's title.
With his only championship rival Pavel Loknovski disappointingly unable to race at Zandvoort though, it led to a bit of an anti-climax, with De Vos already now having the required amount of points to win the championship without even having to turn a wheel. Despite this, there were plenty more battles further down the field that remained unresolved, and an exciting race was still anticipated.
Qualifying
Able to bask in the glory of already having the championship sealed, De Vos duly took pole position around Zandvoort, compared to a karting track by many of the competitors, but a popular track nevertheless. Unsurprisingly it was the other Malta Force of Lewis Redshaw who locked out the front row. David Jundt came alive in the latter part of the qualifying session, jumping to 3rd position and taking on his 'best of the rest' role very well once again. Jason Muscat took 4th, and Tom Parker rounded out the top 5. Phil Perkins seemed to be rounding into some sort of form once again after a difficult few races, taking 6th on the grid, ahead of Ryan Walker for Nordsjoen in 7th. Local man Wopke Hoekstra was keen to please the crowd, and duly took a career best 8th position on the grid, surprising both himself and the GPVWC faithful. Ben Warren was disappointed with 9th on the grid, and Georgios Davakos rounded out the top 10.
Race
At the start, it was Redshaw and Jason Muscat able to jump ahead of De Vos, dropping him to 3rd place. Jundt, able to regain his grid slot after another 'eventful' formation lap lost one place down to 4th, and Parker remained in 5th. Further down the order, Ben Warren was forced into a very early retirement after crashing off whilst stuck in the squabbling midfield battles. At the end of the first lap, the top 5 remained as previously mentioned, whilst Walker and Perkins were battling for 6th and 7th place, with Walker able to get the better of the Draig after Turn 1 of Lap 2. The best start of the race without doubt went to another local hero in the form of Roy Schroten. Having qualified in 13th, Roy found himself up to 8th place as the field rounded for the start of Lap 2. Hoekstra remained close behind in 9th, and Ben Morgan rounded out the top 10.
As the next few laps unfolded, we lost the likes of Ric Scott, Erik Tveit, Ben Morgan and Ojay Clark to retirement. Shortly after his battle with Walker, Perkins slid off the track and lost his front wing, elevating Roy Schroten to 7th and Hoekstra to 8th. With Walker now clear of Perkins, he set about catching Parker and Jundt who had now traded positions, and were involved in a great battle for 4th place. The battle got slightly messy though with errors from Parker and Walker dropping them off the back of Jundt, and Parker even losing a position to his teammate Hoekstra. With all the shenanigans happening a few seconds behind him, it almost went unnoticed that Bart De Vos had made his way past Muscat for 2nd place, and had set off to try and catch his teammate Redshaw who was now 3 seconds up the road. Lap 7, and with Muscat seemingly struggling to hang onto the two Malta Force cars ahead of him, his attentions would be forced to go to 4th placed Jundt. With the two drivers clearly going different routes on the setup, it was all set up to be an enthralling battle, and they didn't disappoint. Jundt was mighty through Sectors 2 and 3, but running higher wings than Muscat meant that he was never able to get a good run on the Maltese driver coming out of the final turn, and Muscat's straightline speed was definitely an advantage. Just a few seconds down the road, another battle was set to rumble between Walker and Parker. However, the young Scot accidentally double downshifted, causing his engine to cry enough, and he was forced into retirement on Lap 8, allowing Parker to jump into 5th and set off after Muscat and Jundt.
By Lap 10 De Vos was all over the back of Redshaw, and the Belgian clearly had the pace of his teammate. Redshaw seemed to be suffering heavily with tyre wear, struggling to get traction out of the corners. On the exit of Turn 1, Redshaw span his tyres up just slightly too much, causing him to spear off into the barrier which cost him his front wing, and any hope of beating his teammate. With Jundt and Muscat trading positions a few times during the proceeding laps before the scheduled pitstops, Parker was closing in on them by a good half a second a lap, and knowing the advantage he'd receive by going on fresh tyres, he decided to pit earlier than his battling rivals, hoping to leap the pair of them once they had made their own stops. Sadly for Parker, despite trying the undercut by stopping a few laps earlier, he was unable to get past Muscat once the Maltese finished his own stop. Despite being unable to leap him, with warmer tyres on, he was able to close behind Muscat to within a second, and once Jundt completed his own pitstop, coming out just ahead of Muscat, those three were now separated by just 2 seconds. Further down the order, two Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra and Roy Schroten were having the race of their lives, battling for 6th and 7th position with their home crowd cheering them on. With it being fairly uncharted territory for both, the sometimes erratic Dutchmen were battling hard, but fairly and safely, desperate to hold onto their strong points positions.
Lap 27, and the potential for a three way battle for 2nd place was over, with Jundt getting the final section of the track all wrong, trying to correct a mistake and spearing left into the barrier, costing him his front wing, and any chance of a podium. This elevated Parker into 3rd place, and was now hunting down Muscat. Meanwhile, a cruising Bart De Vos now had a 20 second gap over 2nd placed Muscat, and would untroubled until the end of the race. With Jundt out of the picture, the only notable battles for points position were Muscat and Parker for 2nd, and Hoekstra along with Roy Schroten for 6th place. Jundt rejoined from his incident in 4th place, ahead of the recovering Redshaw in 5th. While Parker generally had a slightly better pace than Muscat, the difference was pretty minimal, so the Englishman was only able to trim the Globe Racing driver's by a few tenths each lap. In the end, Muscat held onto his 2nd place, just 6 tenths ahead of Parker, who took his second podium finish of the season. It was indeed De Vos who took the win though, with a comfortable 23 second gap over 2nd place. The Belgian able to celebrate his championship win in style, was completely untouchable around Zandvoort. Despite Jundt's off on Lap 27, he was able to take 4th place and still have a shot at holding Lewis Redshaw off for 3rd place in the championship. Redshaw himself finished in 5th place. One of the fiercest battles that raged throughout the whole race was Hoekstra and Roy Schroten. The Dutch crowd was delighted to see them both cross the line almost side by side, taking part in a clean, but hard battle, with Hoekstra taking 6th over Schroten by the narrowest of margins, easily career best races for the pair. Georgios Davakos had a quiet race for once, taking 8th place, with Chris Williamson in 9th, and a recovering Phil Perkins taking the final point in 10th.
Classification
Qualifying
Race
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Pitstops | Fastlap | Controller | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 | Bart De Vos
|
Malta Force GP | 35 | 47:31.623 | 1 | 1 | 01:19.983 | 
|
15 |
| 2 | 30 | Jason Muscat
|
Globe Racing | 35 | +23.283s | 4 | 1 | 01:20.769 | 
|
12 |
| 3 | 28 | Tom Parker
|
Kernow Sport | 35 | +23.804s | 5 | 1 | 01:20.369 |
|
10 |
| 4 | 15 | Lewis Redshaw
|
Malta Force GP | 35 | +52.775s | 2 | 2 | 01:20.379 | 
|
8 |
| 5 | 4 | David Jundt
|
Nijo Racing | 35 | +54.065s | 3 | 3 | 01:19.823 |
|
6 |
| 6 | 29 |  Wopke Hoekstra
|
Kernow Sport | 35 | +1:05.221s | 8 | 1 | 01:21.148 |
|
5 |
| 7 | 36 | Roy Schroten
|
Racing Team Schroten | 35 | +1:05.330s | 13 | 1 | 01:21.200 |
|
4 |
| 8 | 26 |  Georgios Davakos
|
Water Blue Racing | 35 | +1:12.863s | 10 | 1 | 01:21.472 |
|
3 |
| 9 | 3 | Chris Williamson
|
Nijo Racing | 34 | +1 Lap | 16 | 1 | 01:22.634 |
|
2 |
| 10 | 0 | Phil Perkins
|
Draig Racing | 34 | +1 Lap | 6 | 3 | 01:20.881 |
|
1 |
| 11 | 8 |  Gavin Thomas
|
Red 5 Racing | 33 | +2 Laps | 21 | 2 | 01:22.410 |
|
0 |
| 12 | 21 |  Christoph Lichtenstein
|
CP Lotus | 33 | +2 Laps | 14 | 2 | 01:22.932 |
|
0 |
| 13 | 34 |  Viesturs Priede
|
Hawkeye Racing | 32 | +3 Laps | 20 | 4 | 01:23.540 |
|
0 |
| 14 | 37 | Mike Schroten
|
Racing Team Schroten | 30 | +5 Laps | 23 | 3 | 01:24.981 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 21 | Matt Clipp
|
CP Lotus | 25 | DNF | 19 | 4 | 01:23.050 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 24 |  Teemu Toikka
|
PB Racing | 12 | DNF | 22 | 6 | 01:25.554 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 10 |  Ryan Walker
|
Nordsjoen Racing | 8 | DNF | 7 | 0 | 01:20.942 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 23 | Ojay Clark
|
Synergetic Motorsports | 4 | DNF | 15 | 0 | 01:24.143 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 7 | Ben Morgan
|
Red 5 Racing | 3 | DNF | 12 | 1 | 01:27.277 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 35 | Tommi Koivunen
|
Hawkeye Racing | 2 | DNF | 18 | 0 | 01:23.843 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 27 |  Erik Tveit
|
Water Blue Racing | 2 | DNF | 17 | 0 | 01:24.039 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 9 | Ben Warren
|
Nordsjoen Racing | 1 | DNF | 9 | 2 | 01:59.360 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 2 | Ric Scott
|
Draig Racing | 1 | DNF | 11 | 0 | 01:34.323 |
|
0 |
Standings after the Race
External Links
| Preceded by: 2011 Supercup Belgian Grand Prix |
2011 Supercup Dutch Grand Prix 2011 |
Succeeded by: 2011 Supercup Singapore Grand Prix |
del.icio.us
digg
facebook
googlebookmark
propeller
reddit
slashdot
stumbleupon