Watt fastest of all at Jyllandsringen
Sunday morning saw the start of test session five of the Danish Touring Car Championship, and soon after the start SEAT Leon driver Jason Watt claimed the weekend best lap time at FDM Jyllandsringen. 1:10.000 is the best ever, but even with that lap time the Seat driver was not pleased.
Jan Magnussen was also very close, only two thousands of a second after the paralyzed Leon driver. The existing lap record is 1.10,742 set by Magnussen, in the season opener last year.
Test session 5
Yesterday showed that the pace was to be found among the two Chevrolets of Nykjær and Lundgaard, Magnussen´s newly formed Ree Sport BMW and the two Honda racers of Poulsen and Thompson. That pattern didn’t change Sunday morning; however the pace from the new Honda DTC driver Per Poulsen has been a surprise, as Poulsen won the Clio Cup championship last year. Jason Watt was in the lead all session long, followed by Jan Magnussen´s Ree Sport BMW.
This fight continued until the end of the 25 minute long session, where Watt set the all time best lap time of 1.10,000, with Magnussen only 2 thousands of a second behind.
“This is the saddest lap ever, “ Watt complained. “Imagine setting a lap of 1.10,000. That makes me feel a bit ambivalent. It would have been so much more fun to set a lap of 1.09,999. It was a manly lap. You could just feel that something good was on the way, through the first two corners.”
“Then I went through the first split, where I am told on the radio, “Fastest sector of all – go for it.” The second sector was a bit of a problem. Through the last corner I steered more to the right than to the left. I steered contra through the corner, and that was not 100 percent. It was only 95 percent. The lap could have been to tenths better, if the last part had worked, “ Watt explains.
Michael Klostermann once again the best Invitation-Only driver in his ex-DTC BMW.
Test session 6
The summertime turned sour to the surprise of everyone, even the TouringCarTimes.com photographer was caught out in the rain, wearing only a t-shirt. Only 9 cars were out in this second to last test session, James Thompson was once again the fastest driver in the wet, setting a lap of 1.17,517.
Kasper Jensen followed in his BMW E46 trailing Thommo within a second of the latter. Casper Elgaard did also use the chance to get wet weather training in his new Leon, Magnussen and the two Chevrolets followed. The only Invitation-Only driver trying out his hand in the wet, was JM Racing’s Jens Ole Mathiesen in his BMW E46 M3. The two Seat Leon Supercopa drivers, John Hansen and Martin Marrill stayed in, as they had their share of driving in the rain, at the DMV Tourenwagen race at Hockenheim last week.
Test session 7
15.40 the lights went green for the last official DTC test session, before the season opener in a week, and thankfully the sun was out again. James Thompson has been flying all weekend, and was very close to Watt’s all time best time of 1.10,000. Only 1 tenth was separating the Englishman from breaking the record time, trailing the rest of the field with over half a second.
Martin Jensen finally showed his pace in second, with Le Mans veteran John Nielsen in third. The two Chevrolet drivers followed with Nykjær in front, showing that the pairing of Michael Nykjær and Henrik Lundgaard bodes well for the future. The Invitation-Only class was led by Jens Ole Mathiesen, followed by the only other non-S2000 driver Martin Marrill, setting his best time during the weekend with 1.14,568.
This concludes the DTC pre-season training before the season. The first race of the season unfolds next weekend, the 9/10th of May at FDM Jyllandsringen.
