Fischer Racing once again scored points in the penultimate round of the 2011 FIA GT3-European Championship. In the series first visit to the Slovakiaring near Bratislava, Mikko Eskelinen (FIN) and Christoffer Nygaard (DNK) scored a fine 8th place in the second race in the Fischer Racing Ford GT, while Martin Matzke (CZE) and Markus Palttala (FIN) finished 19th. In the first race, both Fischer Racing-Ford GT experienced bad luck.
The weekend in Slovakia didn’t exactly start as planned for Fischer Racing in Saturday’s first race. Mikko Eskelinen found himself in the gravel bed in the fifth lap, while Markus Palttala had to retire in the pits with a broken radiator at the very same time.
After so much disappointment, Sunday’s second heat started much brighter. Christoffer Nygaard drove a strong opening stint, despite the fact, that he somehow lost his rear diffuser in the opening stages of the race. “I didn’t know what happened, because I didn’t had a contact with someone. But now I know how important the diffuser is, I really could feel how I lost down force in the quick corners and drifted around.” Starting 12th, Nygaard battled up to sixth place until the mandatory driver change. In the latter part of the race, Mikko Eskelinen also had to struggle with the power steering, but still managed to bring the Ford GT to the chequered flag in 8th position, securing points for the third time this season. “That was the maximum what we could archive on this track today”, Nygaard said. “The track is really nice, but was obvious that we lacked power here due to the “Balance of Performance”.”
Martin Matzke and Markus Palttala were also on a mission in Sunday’s race. Matzke started from 25th position and battled up to 18th halfway through the race. Markus Palttala took over the Ford GT for the second part of the race and continued the strong run on 14th placed with a possible Top-10 finish in sight. But then a drive-trough penalty was applied on the #13 Ford GT for crossing the white line at pit exit after the driver change and Palttala finally finished 19th. “I wasn’t in a race car for three month now and the first steps back on track were quite difficult”, Matzke said after his first race weekend with Fischer Racing. “In the first race, we were a bit unlucky with the cooler issue. But in the second race, I made good progress. I’m quite surprised about the GT3-Ford GT, it’s better to drove then the GT1-Ford which I raced before.”
“The result for this weekend is o.k., even if it could have been better”, Fischer Racing team principal Hardy Fischer commented after the race. “We had bad luck in the first race and a not trouble free second race. But we made good pit stops, actually the second quickest of the entire race. But once again it was obvious, that we are in the meantime too much back with our Ford GT compared to the brand new 2011 cars. We hope for an urgent change in the “Balance of Performance” of the car and hope more power. Then I’m very confident that we have a fair chance to fight for the podium again.”
The GT3-European Championship makes now an almost two month break and is back with the final race mid of October in Zandvoort in the Netherlands.
Source : Fischer Racing