Mike Klausner wins 1/8th Rd2 in Austria
Last weekend the 2nd of 6 rounds for the Austrian 1/8th on road championship took place at MORAC-Graz host of the 2008 European ‘B’ Championships. The event was again dominated by Mike Klausner, who took pole position, won his semi final (no direct qualifiers in Austria) and took the final to cap a nearly perfect weekend for him.
After qualifying we had following result:
1. Michael Klausner – 25 Laps in 7:16.050
2. Herfried Pucher – 24 Laps in 7:04.900
3. Patrick Wendy – 24 Laps in 7:05.994
4. Thomas Sutrich – 24 Laps in 7:08.096
5. Gerhard Kandelhart – 24 Laps in 7:09.135
Semi B:
1. Herfried Pucher – 67 Laps in 20:05.090
2. Nejc Mihelic – 67 Laps in 20:07.122
3. Christian Schiff – 67 Laps in 20:14.526
Semi A:
1. Michael Klausner – 68 Laps in 20:13.406
2. Gerhard Kandelhart – 66 Laps in 20:10.660
3. Patrick Wendy – 66 Laps in 20:15.525
In the 45 minute final Mike Klausner pushed away in the beginning and at first refueling at 4:30 he had already a 5 seconds lead, which was the time he needed for one extra refuel stop he had to do against Herfried Pucher who was pitting at the 5 minute mark. At minute 6 to 9 Klausner’s car became slower, it looked like he had a technical problem, he lost more than 10 seconds against Pucher. After the second refueling Klausner became again quickest on track and managed to close the gap to Pucher again and now the lead was changing several times due to the refueling. At the halfway mark Klausner was pushing extremely and managed some very fast lap times to gain a comfortable lead, then at 23 mintues refuel with tire change (4 tire change in 8.5 seconds), Pucher again took the lead. Klausner was now pushing with new tires again and closing the gap to Pucher who was doing a 17 second tire change at minute 26, and now Klausner had a comfortable lead which he controlled until the end of the race. After the final Michael explained that the reason his car became slower was that he was holding his hands too high and had lost feeling in has throttle finger, a shake of his hands at the next stop and got the feeling back again.
Final result
1. Klausner Michael – 153 Laps in 45:16.684
2. Pucher Herfried – 151 Laps in 45:03.532
3. Mihelic Nejc – 149 Laps in 45:04.423
4. Wendy Patrick – 149 Laps in 45:15.048
5. Schiff Christian – 148 Laps in 45:02.850
6. Kandelhart Gerhard – 147 Laps in 45:02.409
7. Wopfner Michael – 145 Laps in 45:09.266
8. Strasser Rene – 144 Laps in 45:10.495
9. Helmecke Marcus – 138 Laps in 45:08.864
10.Höller Helmut – 138 Laps in 45:12.184
Thanks to Michael Selner for the report.
