All-in-all the year went pretty well for Austrian XRAY drivers, who ended up in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places at the end of the Nationals! More proof of the consistency of the XRAY NT1: Gerhard Kandelhart finished all National races with a win, and I got 2nd place four (4) times!
Graz
Because the track in Aigen wasn’t ready by the date of the first race of the Nats, we had delay it to the end of the year and start with the second run.
Saturday went pretty well for all of we XRAY drivers, and I even thought I could win this one but things turned out different on Sunday. Because of several driving mistakes in the semi-final, I had to start from 9th place with the other XRAY starting on pole (Gerhard Kandelhart) and 4th (Björn Moser) places. As the race went on I was getting closer and closer to the lead but then the computer crashed and we were forced to end the race after 33 minutes because the sun had already set. Kandelhart finished 1st, and I finished 2nd.
Salzburg
In Salzburg, XRAY totally ruled the event right from the beginning. With Kandelhart taking the lead once again – followed by Furthner, Moser and me – no other car stood a chance against the power of XRAY. The finishing order was fairly evident right from the beginning. Kandelhart and Furthner had the home track advantage, and they took the win easily leaving me and Moser seven laps behind.
Amstetten
This year there was pretty tough competition between me and Kandelhart in Amstetten, with the home track advantage coming to me this time. On Saturday we set my car to perfection so it seemed to fly around corners. Because of the great set-up I was able to take the lead in the qualifiers and even set a new lap record. But the happiness wasn’t to last long. I lost control of my car in the finals and dropped back nearly one lap. I started pushing my car to its limit and finished in 2nd place only 3 seconds behind the seemingly-unbeatable Gerhard Kandelhart.
St. Paul
There’s not much to say about that one. Kandelhart took the lead by 1 second in qualifying with two XRAY following : Moser and me. Unfortunately, the race was halted before the finals because of a heavy storm.
Aigen Schlägl
Again Kandelhart took the win at this one followed by myself and Berger Hermann. Nothing terribly interesting happened at this race; it was a fairly boring extended and start-to-finish lead by Kandelhart and me.
(click to enlarge)
FINAL RESULTS of the Austrian Championship:
1. Gerhard Kandelhart XRAY NT1
2. Manuel Singer XRAY NT1 (Junior-Champion)
3. Björn Moser XRAY NT1
4. Richard Furthner XRAY NT1
5. Michael Klausner 6. Hermann Berger XRAY NT1
7. Jun. Andreas Stiebler
8. Jochen Katzmayer
9. Gernot Baumgartner 10. Kerstin Wimberger XRAY NT1
