Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland, round 2
The new qualifying mode for the second round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in the Oschersleben Motorsport Arena provided drama from the very first moment. Initially, all 39 competitors had just a quarter of an hour to go for top times. At the end of this session positions 16 to 39 were determined. Immediately afterwards, a 10-minute shoot-out gave the fastest 15 a chance to secure the top grid positions.
Porsche specialist Uwe Alzen (Germany) takes up the 22-lap race on Sunday from third on the grid. New-comer to the series Pascal Kochem (Germany) raised eyebrows when he qualified his 911 GT3 Cup on fourth position with a lap time just eight-hundredths of a second behind Uwe Alzen's best time.
Nicolas Armindo from France and Jan Seyffarth (Germany) share the third grid row in fifth and sixth positions. With seventh in qualifying, the new UPS Porsche junior driver Martin Ragginger (Austria) underlined his top form which he had already shown at the first race in Hockenheim.
For several strong drivers the qualifying was over after the first 15 minutes. The former DTM pilot Thomas Jäger (Germany) was nudged by a rival early on in the session resulting in his leaving the circuit. With dirty tyres Jäger missed his chance to take part in the “shoot-out” by just one-thousandths of a second. With 17th position, Christian Menzel (Germany), as 2005 champion of the series, was also excluded from the session of the 15 fastest.
Jörg Hardt (pole-sitter): “I'm probably more familiar with Oschersleben than my rivals because I lived here for almost two years and drove many thousands of kilometres on this track. In the Carrera Cup I was always really fast here but had unbelievably bad luck. In 2004 tyre damage robbed me of a top result, I had gearbox problems in 2005, and last year I stupidly crashed. So I'm crossing my fingers for tomorrow. My car is prepared to perfection. In the first lap I was much too early on the brakes and had to accelerate again to reach the corner! With few chances to overtake here the start is decisive. I will do my damnedest to show a better take off from the starting line than two weeks ago in Hockenheim.”
Richard Westbrook (second qualifier): “This is my first visit to Oschersleben. I like the circuit. It offers a couple of challenging corners, like for instance the three quick left-handers called Triple. A lot of drivers criticise the new design of the first corner after the finish straight, but I have nothing to compare it with. In my opinion it's the only decent place to overtake. As far as Joerg's time goes I can only take my hat off to him. I tried everything but he was simply much quicker.”
Source: Porsche
