Vesa Yli extends series lead with FinTrack Rd3 win
The 3rd round of the FinTrack Tour nationals was held last weekend in Kiiminki, near the city of Oulu in Northern Finland. Most of the 1/12 tops were attending, with names like Simo Ahoniemi, Teemu Saarinen, Tony Raikas, Tom Kalves, Viljami Kutvonen, Panu Vehniainen and of course championship leader Vesa Yli from the organizing club, OSPA. The venue was a big school sports hall with plenty of room for pitting and spectators. The track was a bit different from other tracks used in FinTrack series as track was 90% surrounded by tubes which is not so usual in Finland. So for 1/12 the track was ideal by being pretty technical but for touring it was a bit narrow with its 2m width.
Practice and qualifying
Right from the first pack it was Vesa and Simo who were leading the pack followed by Teemu Saarinen, local young V-Dez driver Miika Laurila and Viljami Kutvonen with his Carpet Ripper 3.0 who made A main also at recently held Indoor TC Euros in Finland.
Vesa struggled with some rear axle problem during the qualifying as well as had some problems with the shock of the car so couldnt get the car going like wanted, so Simo took the TQ by by 3secs ahead of Vesa, the rest were at least lap behind with Teemu followed in 3rd spot with Miika driving superb run and taking the 4th place just ahead of Viljami Kutvonen and Panu Vehniäinen with their Rippers.
Finals
In first lef of A main Simo took the win ahead of Vesa who was still struggling with his car. Now rear axle was working and didnt slip but there was something still wrong so Simo took the win by couple of seconds ahead of Vesa, Viljami followed in 3rd place, Miika 4th and Panu 5th so 4 Rippers in top 5 in first final!
In second A main Simo took the lead but Vesa followed closely. Vesa got his car going better now after finding the problem. Simo made small error which allowed Vesa to take the lead immediately. So Vesa took the leg 2 win, followed by Simo, Teemu, Panu and Viljami.
So in last final it was either Simo or Vesa who would the the win. Simo took a good start but Vesa got also a great start as the car was now almost “normalized” and was on Simo’s tail and pressured Simo to make a mistake which allowed Vesa to take the lead. Simo fought back and both cars were going side by side for few corners but then Vesa made small error and hit the curb which allowed Simo to take the lead again. Vesa was already closing the small gap when Simo hit the tube and damaged his car which meant he was out of the race. Vesa drove to comfortable win followed by Viljami, Miika and Teemu.
A- final overall results
1. Vesa Yli – 2pts (2 1 1) V-Dezign Carpet Ripper 4.0
2. Simo Ahoniemi – 3pts (1 2 9)
3. Viljami Kutvonen – 5pts (3 5 2) V-Dezign Carpet Ripper 3.0
4. Teemu Saarinen – 7pts (8 3 4)
5. Miika Laurila – 7pts (4 10 3) V-Dezign Carpet Ripper 3.0
6. Panu Vehniäinen – 9pts (5 4 5) V-Dezign Carpet Ripper 4.0
7. Tony Raikas – 12pts (6 7 6)
8. Tom Kalves – 13pts (9 6 7)
9. Jarno Siltanen – 15pts (7 8 8)
10.Sami Munck – 19pts (10 9 10)
Finnish Championship after 3/4 rounds
1. Vesa Yli [ 90 100 100 ] 290pts
2. Simo Ahoniemi [ 100 82 90 ] 272pts
3. Teemu Saarinen [ 76 72 76 ] 224pts
4. Viljami Kutvonen [ 66 69 82 ] 217pts
5. Tony Raikas [ 72 76 66 ] 214pts
6. Tom Kalves [ 82 60 63 ] 205pts
7. Panu Vehniäinen [ 57 66 69 ] 192pts
8. Miika Laurila [ 63 42 72 ] 177pts
9. Jarno Siltanen [ 60 54 60 ] 174pts
10.Joni Minkkinen [ 44 57 54 ] 155pts
Last race counts in tie break so championship battle is now between Vesa and Simo only.
Source: V-Dezign [v-dezign.net] / Images: Janne Aspinen
