Road Racing — 20 May 2008


 

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After a frustrating last race weekend at Mugello Susie Stoddart proved to be competitive again two weeks later at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz near the city of Dresden in Eastern Germany. After three practice sessions with no major problems and encouraging lap times she even entertained hopes to step up to the second qualifying section. But disappointingly she found herself only on 17th position in the grid.

“Generally practice went well. I was on pace compared to my team mates and also very happy with my longrun on friday”, the Scot depicted. “In qualifying my car wasn’t perfect but also not bad. My lap was good with no big mistakes. This is why I am very disappointed right now. We’re all so close together that with some luck it could have been much better. But with a good start and as I know my car is quick over the distance I think I can achieve something in the race tomorrow – even if it is quite hard to make up positions on this track.”

But once again the race in front of 80.000 spectators didn’t go off as planned. In the warm-up session Susie’s TV Spielfilm AMG-Mercedes C class suffered from a braking problem. Her technical crew tried everything to solve it within the short time until the start of the race – but all efforts turned out to be unsuccessful. “My braking pedal got softer and softer every lap”, Stoddart reported. “I tried to carry on as long as possible even if my lap times weren’t competitive anymore. I had to brake 50 meters earlier than usual and still hardly made it into the corners. A part of me hoped for rain or anything else unexpected, so I just wanted to keep my car on the track. But at the end of the day ist was just too dangerous. When the pedal went on the floor completely I decided to retire eleven laps from the end. It’s a big shame because I was confident I could do a good race today.”

Now Susie and her rivals take a six weeks break until the next race at the legendary Norisring at Nuremberg on June 29th. “I am looking forward to Norisring”, the 25 year old assures. “The atmosphere there is always amazing and the track should suit our car. Now I will take some time off to refill my batteries – and then we’ll be back fighting again!”

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