Race Report by Chris helm

On Saturday the new format for qualification for Sunday’s GP certainly provided the spectators with more action and the two races followed by the last chance qualification against the clock produced some very strange results.

In the pre-qualifying practice sessions the riders in the two groups, A & B, ride to set a fast time to give them a good grid position for the two qualification races.

There were no real surprises in either group but once the races began the fun started. In the group A race Willemsen / Kaelin led from Sergis / Stupelis with Schrijver / van de Wiel 3rd and Bax / van Deutekom 4th. Already missing before the end of the first lap was the Czech team of Rozehnal / Rozehnal. By lap two Willemsen had crashed at least three times, was dead last, and behaving in a way that you would not expect from a world champion and was obviously trying to blame his passenger for everything that was going wrong. In fact it was all being caused by him making no allowance for the fact that Kaelin was a stand-in and not used to riding at that speed. By half distance he gave up and pulled out. Also out by this stage were Steegmans / Sabbe. At the flag Sergis won from Schrijver with Brown / Keuben 8th and Lyne / Girling taking the last qualifying place. Missing the cut were Kinge / Kinge as well as Willemsen, Steegmans, Rozehnal and Santermans.

The group B race was more predictable with Hendrickx / Smeuninx taking the win from the Daiders boys with Derks / van Duynhoven 3rd. Pelling / Breacher and the Millard brothers missed the cut as did Pulinx / Verbrugge.

In the last chance session all the fancied runners got through to the main races but would have to start on the back row in positions 25 to 30. Pelling and Millard both missed out.

Race 1 was led initially by Joris Hendrickx from Sergis with Burgler / Fagerberg in 3rd. By the time the riders came into view again from the far side of the track Sergis was in front from Hendrickx with Marcel Willemsen 3rd whilst brother Daniel was way back in 15th place. Brown was the leading Brit in 16th with Lyne 22nd and Wilkinson 23rd.

At the front Sergis was opening the gap on each lap and was over ten seconds ahead after just 5 minutes. He continued to pile on the pressure until he had opened the gap up to over 30 seconds then he just knocked off the pace and comfortably went on to take the win. Joris Hendricks continued in 2nd place until the last few laps when he was overtaken by his cousin, Jan, who had steadily worked his way up from 7th on lap 1. Daniel Willemsen rode incredibly sensibly throughout the race steadily working his way up the field finally finishing in 5th.

The three Brits in the race remained close together throughout the race with Lyne passing Brown on lap two and Brown repaying the compliment two laps later. Lyne got in front again towards the end finishing 17th with Brown 18th. Wilkinson went out on lap 6 when Gary was run over after an incident.

The second lag was once again led by Joris Hendrickx from Sergis with Jan Hendrickx 3rd and Bax in 4th but as in race 1 when they came back into view Sergis was in front. After just 3 laps Sergis had opened up a gap of 15 seconds and showed no signs of easing up. Jan Hendrickx was now up to 3rd and Daniel Willemsen was up to 6th. Brown had worked his way up to 15th with Wilkinson in 18th and Lyne in 21st.

On lap 4 the two Hendrickxs made a mistake and Derks / van Duynhoven were suddenly up to 2nd place. By half distance Sergis was nearly 40 seconds in front but then disaster struck when his cut-out failed thus stopping the motor. Although he did get it going it didn’t last and he eventually pulled out. This left Derks leading a GP for the first time. He held the lead until four laps from the flag when he was overtaken by Jan Hendrickx. D. Willemsen had worked his way up to third by this stage.

By this time Brown was up 9th with Wilkinson 15th and Lyne 16th.

At the flag Jan Hendrickx won from Derks and Willemsen giving the Belgians their first GP win since Gunther Goovaerts in 1994.

The overall win went to Jan with Willemsen 2nd and Joris 3rd. By round two Willemsen should be reunited with his regular passenger, Reto Grutter, and will be determined to get back to the top spot but Sergis and the two Hendrickxs have certainly shown that they more than capable of giving him a run for his money. Round 2 is in Jinin, CZ Republic, on 11th May.