Ingo Gerstl catches first win with his Toro Rosso STR1
The 5th BOSS GP race weekend on the TT Circuit Assen (NED) started on Saturday with something totally unexpected. First of all home boy Klaas Zwaart (NED) showed up again with his Jaguar R5 in order to compete against Ingo Gerstl`s Toro Rosso STR1 in the OPEN class of the BOSS GP and he immediately set the pace and fastest lap time overall in FP1. However, he was not able to do a fast lap in qualifying and due to further technical difficulties he had to retire from the grid for race 1. With Peter Milavec and his rebuilt ChampCar fitted with a new Judd 4.2 V10 engine together with Philippe Haezebrouck, who piloted a Zele-Racing Auto GP car, two more pilots were competing in the OPEN class this time. Gerstl with his Toro Rosso started the 1st race from P3, showed a superb performance and granted his first overall victory this season. Milavec finished 2nd in the class and Phillippe Haezebrouck caught a podium spot with a gap of 19 seconds.
In the FORMULA class the ongoing infight between the Austrian youngster Johann Ledermaier and his toughest contender Jakub Smiechowski from Poland faced another shift. Smiechowski was the fastest man in the qualifying, set his car on pole position and also hit the first corner after the rolling start on P1. Still in lap 2 Ledermaier had a big multi-turn spun before the last chicane and had to stop his car in the run-off-area. This incident cleared the way for the Polish GP2 driver and he celebrated his third win in a row. In addition he took over the lead in the FORMULA Championship for the first time this season.
The German Florian Schnitzenbaumer who showed a constant increasing form curve since the beginning of the season also took advantage from Ledermaier`s mistake and controlled P2. A drive-through penalty (which finally wasn’t showing for him) pushed Schnitze back towards the end of the race and suddenly his team mate Wolfgang Jaksch was catching the second position until the last lap. Schnitzenbaumer was pushing to get his position back and attacked his German team mate in the last lap, unfortunately they both crashed with the result that both drivers were out of the race. The big winners of this incident were Henk de Boer and Armando Mangini, who could not grasp their luck when they entered the finish line as second and third.
Veronika Cicha, the Czech female driver, also caught her best position this season with a 4rd place followed by Christian Eicke. Wolfgang Jaksch and Florian Schnitzenbaumer were still classified on P6 and P8 and could gain at least a few points for the championship as well. Jens Renstrup and Peter Göllner completed the arriving field with P7 and P9.
The MASTERS class faced another tight battle between the two German swashbucklers Hans Laub and Karl-Heinz Becker. With a 4,9 sec gap it was Laub, who finally triumphed again over his permanent rival Becker. P3 went again to Walter Steding.
Race 2 on Sunday afternoon will not only be supported by approximately 90.000 racing fans, but it will be also interesting to witness, how the fast and unlucky guys from today – while starting from the end of the grid – will be able and willing to plow throughout the field. Race 2 will be started according to the placements of Race1.
BOSS GP – always a dramatic spectacle for all pure racing fans!