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  2011 Supercup Spanish Grand Prix

Race details
2011 Supercup season
Date	September 28th, 2011
Official name	2011 Supercup Spanish Grand Prix
Location	Circuit de Catalunya Barcelona, Spain
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.875 mi / 4.655 km
Distance	32 laps, 92.000 mi / 148.960 km
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Bart De Vos	Malta Force GP
Time	1:24.865
Fastest Lap
Driver	Bart De Vos	Malta Force GP
Time	1:25.404
Podium
First	Bart De Vos	Malta Force GP
Second	Ryan Walker	Nordsjoen Racing
Third	Jason Muscat	Globe Racing

The 2011 Supercup Spanish Grand Prix was the 17th race of the season and was won by Bart De Vos.

Report

After managing to hold championship leader Bart De Vos off for the win in the closing stages in the last race at Monza, Triple-Double Racing driver Pavel Loknovski knew that to keep his championship hopes alive, he'd need to try and beat his Belgian rival once again as the field headed slightly west for the short trip to Barcelona for Round 17. While Malta Force still had a commanding lead in the Constructors' championship, they only fielded one car at this race, with Lewis Redshaw not competing.

Qualifying

However, it appeared De Vos was back on form, and duly took pole position ahead of David Jundt, who surprised everyone by getting onto the front row. With Jundt and Redshaw tied on points for 3rd place in the championship, the Nijo Racing driver wanted to take full advantage of Redshaw's absence. 3rd place on the grid was Jason Muscat, who this time was driving for new team Globe Racing. Loknovski was disappointed with his qualifying, having to settle for 4th place. Jundt, Muscat and Loknovski were separated by just five hundredths of a second. Ryan Walker for Nordsjoen Racing rounded out the top 5.

Race

It was chaos at the back of the field at the start, with a different lights sequence than normal confusing many of the drivers. Tom Parker, who qualified in 6th was the one caught out most, almost coming to a halt in his gridslot. The Draig Racing cars of Phil Perkins and Ric Scott tried to avoid him, with Perkins managing to do so, but Scott unable to avoid the back of his teammate, costing him his front wing. More evasive maneuvers took place further down the grid, with the likes of Georgios Davakos and Teemu Toikka being forced into early retirements. With the first lap completed, De Vos had already pulled out a reasonable gap over the 2nd placed Muscat, with a four car battle developing for 3rd position between Walker, Loknovski, Jundt and Ben Warren. Start of the race without doubt went to Roy Schroten who found himself up to 7th place, but being hounded by the slow starting Tom Parker and Chris Williamson. Eventually, both driver's would make it past Schroten.

Lap 8, and David Jundt's race came to a premature end after contact with Walker sent the Nijo driver into retirement with a destroyed car, this moved Loknovski up to 3rd, with Walker 4th, and Warren 5th. A tough few races these past weeks for the Swiss driver has seen his championship challenge fade, and with the announcement that he'd miss the next two races, his championship challenge was officially over. The field held station before the pitstops, aside from a few battles in the midfield. Lap 16 saw a very eventful race for youngster Erik Tveit come to an end. After an impressive debut in Monza, the Norwegian had a tougher time in Barcelona. With De Vos in a comfortable lead, and Loknovski 2nd, a good battle was set to shape up between Jason Muscat and Ryan Walker for 3rd place. Another battle was potentially going to develop for 5th between Ben Warren and Tom Parker, although Parker was given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pits, effectively ending his chance at catching the Nordsjoen driver. A huge twist in the championship battle was set to occur on Lap 27 though, after 2nd placed Loknovski crashed, losing his front wing. The TDR driver pitted to repair the damage, dropping down to 6th, and elevating Muscat, Walker, Warren and Parker a position each. It was bad news for the Estonian though, as his car appeared undrivable after his pitstop, and he was forced into retirement a lap later. It was music to the ears of Bart De Vos, and with nearly half a minutes advantage over the squabbling Muscat and Walker, he just had to cruise home.

Indeed, it was the Belgian driver who romped home, 29 seconds ahead of Ryan Walker, who eventually made his way past Muscat, and managed to hold him off to the finish. Muscat gave Globe Racing their first points in the Supercup championship. Ben Warren took home 4th place, his best Supercup result to date, and more pleasing after a disappointing couple of races before that. Tom Parker was relatively happy with 5th after a difficult start to the race, but was disappointed with his drive-through penalty costing him any chance of catching and battling Warren for 4th. Chris Williamson was delighted with 6th place, showing good pace throughout the race, and achieving his best finish of the season, in what has been a more challenging season for last year's championship runner-up. It was a great 7th place for CP Lotus driver Matt Clipp, in only his second race, he showed some much improved pace compared to Monza. Ric Scott recovered well to 8th place after losing his front wing at the start. Andrejs Pestovs would no doubt be pleased with 9th, achieving his first points of the season, while William Tringas rounded out the top 10 for PB Racing.

In the championship battle, Bart De Vos moved ever closer to taking the Supercup championship with 150 points to his name, and thanks to his main rivals falling by the wayside again, he now had a commanding 34 point lead over second placed Loknovski. The absent Lewis Redshaw stayed 3rd in the championship, but sees his championship chance officially end, now 55 points behind his teammate. Jundt stayed level on points with Redshaw, but his retirement also saw his title challenge finish. Another absentee, Gregg Lawson stayed 5th, but now had Muscat breathing down his neck, just 4 points behind. Parker and Davakos remained 7th and 8th respectively, while Ryan Walker moved up to 9th, demoting Liam Hatchell to 10th. In the Constructors battle, Malta Force officially wrapped up the championship, despite only one car taking the start line at Barcelona. The 78 point lead they have over 2nd placed Nordsjoen Racing was too large for the famous outfit to overcome, although they themselves had extended the gap between themselves and 3rd placed Nijo Racing to 20 points. Triple-Double Racing remained in 4th, only 11 points behind Nijo, and finally had someone else other than Loknovski take home some points for them. Woods Racing remained in 5th place, but were being closely hounded by Synergetic, PB Racing, Water Blue Racing and Kernow Sport, in what promised be a very interesting battle to the end.

Classification

Qualifying

Race

Standings after the Race

External Links