Ida Zetterström has strengthen her FIA European Drag Racing Championship lead in the Top Fuel class following round two of the series’ season held at Sweden’s Tierp Arena
After two extremely hot qualification days, the elimination day started with much cooler temperatures, promising stunning elapsed times. But with one elimination round completed in Top Fuel, Top Methanol and Pro Stock, and two in Pro Modified, and with Top Fuel runners at the start line for their semi-finals, it started to rain, resulting in the race director’s decision to call off the remainder of the event.
In the moment of the competitions coming to a premature stop, all the leaders in the championship after round one were still in contention for their second consecutive wins.
In Top Fuel, Zetterström came out on top in the end, scoring 65 points, with Denmark’s Stig Neergaard second-best and the top three rounded out by reigning champion, Finland’s Antii Horto. With two out of five FIA EDRC rounds contested, Zetterström sits atop the standings with 166 points to her name, with Susanne Callin, who was the fourth-best scorer in Sweden, in second, 38 points down on the fellow Swedish female racer.
In Top Methanol the best qualifier Johnny Oksa defeated Sandro Bellio after the reigning champion once again ran into problems early on in his run. With a bye run in the semi-finals, Oksa would have been in the final if it wasn’t for the rain. Yet, the Finnish racer was still the event’s top scorer, having gathered a total of 66 points, three more than second-best Linn Fløysvik, who currently leads the standings (144 points) from Silvio Strauch (115) and Sandro Bellio (84).
For the Pro Stock class Tierp Arena was the opening round of the season. The top four qualifiers Simon Ekengren, Stefan Ernryd, Michael Malmgren and Jimmy Ålund would have raced each other in the semi-finals. In the overall classification, the top four are covered by just nine points, with Ålund on top of the standings with 69 points.
With a 16-car field, Pro Modified was the only class that completed two rounds before the rain came in. There were no major surprises in the first round of eliminations. Michael Gullqvist was the only driver from the top eight qualifiers who didn’t advance to the quarter-finals as the multiple champion was defeated by number ten qualifier Michel Tooren.
With 5.8s runs for David Vegter, Jan Ericsson and Andreas Arthursson and 5.9s runs for Marck Harteveld (holeshot win over Roger Johansson), Bruno Bader and Ålund, the next couple of elimination rounds promised to become close and exciting.
In the quarter-finals Arthursson (5.96 seconds) defeated Åke Persson, and, as Harteveld pulled a red light, Ålund (5.86s) enjoyed an easy win. In what promised to become a close run, Vegter ran into problems, handing the win over to Bader. Reigning champion and winner at Santa Pod, Ericsson recorded another great 5.85s run to defeat Tooren, who suffered from tyre shake.
The third round of the FIA EDRC is set to take place in August, also at Tierp Arena.
