Photo: Gripping Media

Casper Elgaard takes convincing pole

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FDM Motorsport team owner and former three time champion, Casper Elgaard claimed his first pole position after his comeback. As usual the qualification at the Danish Touring Car Championship didn’t let the spectators down, excitement and lots of drama was the order of the day.

The sun was doing its best to heat up the action of the GP Danmark qualification session. The battle between James Thompson and Michel Nykjær however hot enough already. Thompson is unable to race the last two rounds of the season, so everything is on for the Brit, if he dreams of being crowned as a champion.

Elgaard was the lightest top runner today, while Thompson carried around the maximum ballast of 110 kg. The former champion made the best of the light car, and claimed top honours at the start of the session with a lap time of 1.10,548. Michel Nykjær followed with a difference of two tenths of a second. Behind him were Jason Watt and Jens Reno Møller.

But Elgaard didn’t leave it to the will of the Gods, and improved to 1.10,276. Lundgaard followed that trend, putting his blue Chevrolet behind teammate Nykjær in third spot, in front of Watt. Then peace and quiet drifted over the track, having the toprunners running for long laps, without any change at the top of the list.

Jan Magnussen had his best lap time removed as a penalty after hitting the floppys in turn three. Honda man Per Poulsen made the same mistake with the same result, but decided for both turn three and nine.

Poulsen did however fall from second spot to twelfth spot, due to this penalty. Time was running out, and several of the top runners decided to call it the day, and accept Elgaard´s pole. The latter entering the pits under applause.

But one man did however raise the alarm, with a nearly empty track and posting one best sector time marked in red on the timing screen. Thompson was out for a war, posting best sector times in both sector one and two. However the tall Englishman left it all in the third sector, loosing several tenths and also the last pole position of the 2009 season.

FDM Motorsport driver Elgaard celebrated pole position, at the 100th year celebration of the Danish car drivers’ organization FDM, on the FDM owned track. Thompson and Nykjær followed in second and third. FDM Motorsport teammate Jens Reno Møller claimed the privateer honours, while John Hansen was the fastest Invitation Only driver today.