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Andreas Giesa wins first round of German Northern Championship (17/05/2009)

By:: Reporter
Linked to:: Serpent 966 1/8 scale 4WD EVO, Serpent 966 -TE 1/8 scale 4WD, Serpent 966 -TE v2 1/8 scale 4WD

Last weekend first race of this year took place in Munster - one of the traditional tracks in the north of Germany – fast, but also technical. Weather was fine during practise, but forecast also promised some rain for Sunday.

Qualification runs were a battle between Andreas Giesa and Lars Hoppe for the lead. Both were the only ones doing the 21 laps. Saturday’s overnight pole took Hoppe with a 1 second gap on Giesa, who was short on fuel on his last lap in heat 1. Giesa could improve himself on Sunday morning in heat 2 and had a 2 second gap and the lead, but this changed in heat 3 again with Hoppe´s fastest run of the day. Heat 4 did not change anything because of higher temperatures slowing down the track. Merlin Depta was also showing a strong performance and took third place in front of Jürgen Stark.

Final Qualification:

Lars Hoppe (Velox/NR)
Andreas Giesa (Serpent S966/mega ZX21 DSIII/XCEED Italia tires)
Merlin Depta (Serpent S966/NR/XCEED Italia tires)
Jürgen Stark (Serpent S966/mega ZX21 DSIII/XCEED Italia tires)

Some rain was coming up with starting of the lower finals and created difficult track conditions. So driving and finding right tires was really hard. The final was completed by Behnken, Salzburg, Bitterkleit, Henriksen, Tietz and Schmidt.

Clear start of the final under dry conditions and first minutes of racing showed Hoppe doing a small gap on Giesa, who had some work with pushing Merlin Depta to keep his second place. These standings did not change during following minutes of the final, but Depta ruined his tires too much in the first half of the final. So he had to slow down a little bit. Hoppe gained for a few moments a one lap advantage on Giesa, but Giesa could lap back himself and decreased the gap on 11 seconds before Hoppe´s engine flamed out at the track some minutes before the end. Coming back on the track now behind Giesa he tried to get back the lead, but gearbox problems made it very hard for him and he stayed in second position at the end and Giesa won the race.

Final Standings:

Andreas Giesa (Serpent S966/mega ZX21 DSIII/XCEED Italia tires)
Lars Hoppe (Velox/NR)
Merlin Depta (Serpent S966/NR/XCEED Italia tires)
Jürgen Stark (Serpent S966/mega ZX21 DSIII/XCEED Italia tires)
Joachim Behnken (Mugen)
Andreas Salzburg
Marcel Henriksen (Serpent S960-08)
Norman Bitterkleit
Marcel Tietz (Mugen)
Marcel Schmidt (Velox)

Next round will be in Hildesheim on June 7th – the track of this year’s german nationals. Some guest drivers from other areas of Germany are expected for this race to have some practise for the main event of this year.

Team Serpent Germany
Serpent/Xceed/Mega