One week before this race we had Round 4 and that was a thrilling one so we expected the same for this round because some of the drivers had to work really hard to make changes to the 2009 final points standings. Round 5 was held at the famous Heemstede track, The MACH.
Again the weather was really nice and everyone was there on Saturday to practice. Some of the drivers used Saturday to rebuild their cars from the last race and later in the afternoon they were also able to get in some practice. So after Saturday it looked again that this was going to be a close battle between the three leaders in the championship.
Qualification started on Sunday morning and it was Team XRAY Maarten van Lierop who set the pace in the first round followed by Pedro Rombouts and then teammate Daan Jacobs. In the other qualifiers it was Daan who had clear runs and took over the pole position from Maarten (who had some engine problems in his last two runs). Pedro was also improving his own times in the last two runs but it was not enough to bump up to 2nd place. Sander Borghoff rounded up the top four.
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Qualifications result:
1. Daan Jacobs XRAY NT1
2. Maarten van Lierop XRAY NT1
3. Pedro Rombouts XRAY NT1
4. Sander Borghoff 5. Arco de Jong XRAY NT1
6. Jurgen Geerlings 7. Daan Stuiver XRAY NT1
8. Bas Geurds XRAY NT1
9. Ingeborg Gommers XRAY NT1
10. Mario Gerssen
Semi-final
The first semi-final B was a really good race because almost the entire field was within a 10-second spread until the last pitstops. The last pitstop was the last chance for XRAY driver Jurmin Etnal to make it into the final because of an engine flame out right in front of the lapcounting line and pitlane, so it cost him a lot of time and he also had to drive the whole lap again. At the end it was Jurgen Geelings who took the win ahead of the fastest one in the semi, XRAY driver Bas Geurds who struggled with overtaking slower drivers.
In the other semi-finals the racing was not as close and a very clear win went to XRAY driver Daan Stuiver followed by NT1 drivers Arco de Jong and Ingeborg Gommers.
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Main Final
The start of the main final was very clean and almost everyone was holding his start position for the first couple of laps. After ten laps it was Daan Jacobs leading the pack followed closely by teammate Maarten and Pedro. Just after this lap Maarten made a mistake and ended up in the grass so he dropped back to 5th place. After 5 more minutes of racing Pedro (in 2nd place) had some slower laps and also Daan had a slow pitstop because his engine flamed out while refueling.
These troubles plus a very fast pitstop by Tim Bosmann (Maarten pitman) put Martin into the lead followed by teammate Daan Jacobs. This was the final standing until the end because Maarten was driving a very clean race; he ended up winning by 9 seconds ahead of Daan. For 3rd and 4th places there was a lot more going on. Pedro had to fight hard because NT1 driver Bas Geurds made it very difficult for him to pass. At the end Bas had some trouble and so Pedro was able to secure the last podium position.
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Final Result:
1. Maarten van Lierop XRAY NT1
2. Daan Jacobs XRAY NT1
3. Pedro Rombouts XRAY NT1
4. Bas Geurds XRAY NT1
5. Ricardo van Dam XRAY NT1
6. Daan Stuiver XRAY NT1
7. Ingeborg Gommers XRAY NT1
8. Sander Borghoff 9. Arco de Jong XRAY NT1
10. Jurgen Geerling
The last round is at the end of September in Utrecht (central Netherlands). The new leader in the championship is now Team XRAY driver Maarten van Lierop but at the end everyone will throw away their lowest result so Pedro has the best position in the 2009 championship. It will be a very close and exciting race for the championship in the Netherlands in the final round.
