The Danish XRAY team arrived at the track on Thursday, and right from the beginning the XRAY NT1 was the car to beat. My car was really good and fast, but Martin Lissau and Helge Johansen were on the same pace. My impression was that all the XRAY NT1 cars were running well on this track and the drivers were really happy about the performance of the car.
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We had two practice rounds before the qualifying round. I set a new lap record, 0.2sec faster than the previous lap record, so I was really confident for qualifying. However, I ran into some problems and there was no space for that. Martin Lissau was on a super-fast pace and won all the qualifying rounds to take the TQ; he was 2 seconds ahead of XRAY driver Helge Johanson and I was 3rd on the grid.
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There were five XRAY NT1 cars in the final, so we had a good chance to win. Martin Lissau (DK) took the lead but in the first laps he ran into problems and needed some quick repairs to his car. This allowed me to take the lead, while Roland Ström (who bumped up from the semi-final) also made a clean start and was running in 2nd because Helge Johansen was running out of fuel before the first pitstop.
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Martin Lissau came back into the race after the repair and was now running really fast. He had a tough but fair battle with XRAY driver Frank Andersen for 3rd place and at one point they collided and Frank's car flipped. Martin Lissau did not take advantage of this, instead he waited for Frank to pass. I crossed the finish line as the 2008 Nordic Champion followed by Roland Ström (SE) and Frank Andersen (NO) in 3rd place with an XRAY.
1. Martin Christensen XRAY NT1
2. Roland Ström 3. Frank Andersen XRAY NT1
4. Martin Lissau XRAY NT1
5. Martin N.O Hansen
6. Tom Kalves 7. Helge Johannessen XRAY NT1
8. Per-Ola Hard
9. Georg Ellingsen 10. Adrian Berntsen XRAY NT1
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I would like to thank my sponsors XRAY, HUDY, Sirio, Matrix Tire, Merlin Fuel, and Capricorn. See you at the WC in Portugal!
