Tuesday night was the turn of TBR Sweden to nip across to Brazil for round 7 of the Swedish Iracing League at Interlagos. With 5 TBR drivers taking part and Magnus “Murray Walker” Vallström on commentating duties, the chances of a decent result were almost as high as the track temperature!
Qualifying went as follows: Andreas “Don’t lease, BUY!” Olsson lead the TBR pack with a time of 1:29.247, good enough for 6th from the 39 car field. Next up was Jakeen Laandgran just a tenth behind Andreas in 9th. Snapping at Jocke’s heels was Mikael “Swedish Rig Design” Engstroem, a further tenth back with Rickard “Find your own drivers” Allardh down in 20th just half a second behind Mikael. Jonny “Muscles” Wermelin brought up the rear of the TBR crew in 32 with a 1:30.705. So just 1.5 seconds covered the TBR guys across the tightly packed field and with 30 laps of racing ahead of them, anything could happen.
The race itself was a bit of a mixture for the boys. Andreas maintained position for the first few laps or so before dropping back to 7th on lap 7. However a decent pit with 8 laps remaining put him in a good position to attack Jonas Bodin a couple of laps later, elevating him back to 6th and his final finishing positon. Jocke’s race followed a similar pattern, losing a spot early but gaining it back by lap 6, Jocke proceeded to drive consistently and quick enough to stay ahead of a hard charging Mikael for a final position of 8th. Speaking of Mikael, an early mishap had him dropping a couple of spots to 12th, however he quickly recovered and was back up behind Jocke by lap 13, where he remained for the next 17 laps finishing 9th in the end.
Meanwhile Rickard’s rather lacklustre qualifying performance initially continued in the race, dropping 2 spots to 22nd. Quickly regaining his composure, he was up to 19th by lap 7, but stuck in traffic…. so as soon as the pit window opened, Rick was in there dropping like a massive, heavy whale down to p30 in the process. Steady progress through the rest of the race, and the completion of the pit cycle had the Boss up in 12th with 8 laps remaining. A last lap move on Philip Johansson would give Rick a final position of 11th. Jonny had made decent progress through the first half of the race, pretty much gaining a spot each lap up to 22nd before pitting on lap 15. As happened with Rick, this saw him drop down the order, however he gained through the rest of the race finally coming home in 29th.
In the overall, Mikael has elevated himself to top of the TBR tree in 8th spot, Magnus’s commentating duties have hit him pretty hard, dropping him down to 9th with Jocke in 10th. Andreas and Rickard are 12th and 13th with Jonny back in 33rd after a couple of DNS at the last round.
Results are here.
SIL Broadcast with Silky Smooth Magnus on the comms is here.
Jocke’s view of the race is here.