Michael Klausner wins Rd3 in Austria

Last weekend saw the 3rd leg of the Austrian 1/8th on road nationals held at the MBC-RPA track in Vienna-Aspern. Again perfect weather and a good racing atmosphere greeted the drivers at this difficult and dangerous American style track. Already during practice Mugen/Novarossi driver Mikie Klausner was setting the pace with several unofficial improvements (16.40 sec) of the official track record (16.65 sec). In qualifying the lap record was improved to a new absolute best of 16.27 by Klausner who was easily the top qualifier followed by Motonica/Picco driver Herfried Pucher and Serpent/Max driver Patrick Wendy.

Semi Final B bump ups:
1. Herfried Pucher – 68 20:12.437
2. Nejc Mihelic – 67 20:20.149
3. Rene Strasser – 65 20:01.466
4. Marcus Helmecke – 65 20:16.976
5. Christian Schiff – 63 20:03.230

Semi Final A bump ups:
1. Michael Klausner – 68 20:13.287
2. Patrick Wendy – 66 20:01.342
3. Gerhard Kandelhart – 66 20:07.387
4. Peter Grandinger – 65 20:14.710
5. Marcell Wostalek – 62 20:10.957

In the 45 minute final Herfried Pucher was leading until lap 14, where he was overtaken by Mikie Klausner! Also first fuel stops ´where showing absolute different strategies, Patrick Wendy at 4 minutes, Mikie Klausner and Herfried Pucher at 5 minutes and Nejc Mihelic at 5:30 minutes. After 24 minutes Herfried Pucher was doing the first tire change, only the 2 outer tires and also some adjustments to a lean engine, after this the car did not handle very well. Mikie Klausner was doing a good tire change on all 4 tires at 25 minutes and this gave the opportunity for Patrick Wendy to get into the lead for a few laps.

Again back in the lead Mike Klausner was doing constant lap times and his lead was growing lap by lap, but at the 32 minutes mark he made a mistake, hitting the big wooden plank at the end of the straight and losing a front tire. After coming back to the pit it was replaced with a used small tire, while in the meantime the performance of Patrick’s car had become worse and at 34 minutes he also made a tire change only on the outer side. Mike Klausner was pitting again at 35 minutes to get a tire with the right size in addition to his refill, but a wood chip in his front axle mad it really difficult to remove the to small tire and he lost a lot of time and came out 3 seconds behind Patrick Wendy. After a few laps however he managed to close the gap and overtake Patrick. At the end Mikie Klausner was winning by nearly one lap ahead of Patrick Wendy and nearly 2 laps ahead of Nejc Mihelic who was running the final without any tire change.

Final results
1. Michael Klausner (Mugen/Novarossi) – 152 45:09.992
2. Patrick Wendy (Serpent/Max) – 151 45:08.355
3. Nejc Mihelic (Motonica/Picco) – 150 45:05.191
4. Herfried Pucher (Motonica/Picco) – 147 45:13.445
5. Christian Shiff (Mugen/Novarossi) – 145 45:07.414
6. Peter Grandinger (Mugen/Novarossi) – 145 45:11.628
7. Marcell Wostalek (Mugen/Novarossi) – 141 45:18.489
8. Marcus Helmecke (Mugen/Novarossi) – 128 45:11.843
9. Gerhard Kandelhart (Serpent/Picco) – 68 22:22.306
10.Rene Strasser (Serpent/Max) – 57 17:43.245

Championship points after 3 of 6 races
1. Michael Klausner – 990 points
2. Patrick Wendy – 817 points
3. Herfried Pucher – 801 points
4. Nejc Mihelic – 581 points
5. Christian Schiff – 509 points

Thanks to Michael Selner for the report.