Photo: Grippo Motorsport
The Denmark-based Nordic 4 and Nordic Championship Formula titles were decided in a dramatic final round at Jyllandsringen on September 27/28.
Title contender Sebastian Bach topped practice, his 1m06.964s benchmark comfortably out of reach of everyone else until rival Marius Kristiansen got within 0.232 seconds of his pace with his penultimate lap. Silas Egedal and Alexia Danielsson were the only others within a second of him.
In qualifying Bach was not quite able to match his earlier pace as he set a 1m07.054s. His non-improvement proved costly, as Kristiansen beat him to race one pole by 0.109s and 14-year-old Egedal was only 0.011s behind him. Victor Snebjoern Poulsen was 0.484s off pole in fourth, edging Magnus Pedersen by 0.06s.
Formula 5 benchmark man Mads Hoe was sixth, 1.003s slower than Kristiansen and 0.029s quicker than top Formula Renault 1.6 driver Hampus Varis.
Race one concluded the day, and victory was fought for between Kristiansen and Bach. Hoe got into third early on, before Pedersen tracked him down and got ahead. Egedal and Poulsen also battled until the latter spun and had to work his way back up the order. Egedal was penalised despite the pair believing there was no contact, and after it was applied Egedal was classified seventh. F5 runner Anton Morsing climbed from 19th to 10th, and Poulsen was 11th.
They all gained a place post-race, as on-the-road winner Kristiansen was disqualified over technical non-compliance and Bach became victorious. It closed up the title fight, and put Kristiansen at the back of race two’s reversed grid the next day.
There was a bit of drama getting him into 19th place on the dummy grid, and Egedal stalled from third but recovered the lost places at the end of the formation lap and was straight into second on the real start. It only took a few corners for him to clear FR1.6 runner Richard Olson, and in the race’s second half he pulled away up front.
Casper Nissen took second from Olson into turn one on lap two, while Kristiansen jumped to eighth on lap one, and took fourth from Poulsen as lap four began. He took third from top FR1.6 driver Melvin Kalousdian on lap six, at which point there was too large a gap to make up to the top two. Kalousdian would finish sixth, behind Pedersen and Hoe.
Pedersen led the title decider lights-to-flag, with Nissen starting and finishing second. Bach ended lap one in third while Kristiansen had climbed four spots to 10th. Another two places were gained on lap two, then progress stalled once he got into seventh.
Kristiansen was helped by Poulsen retiring from sixth on lap 11, then he got stuck behind Hoe. He passed him on the last lap, and found himself in third as Bach was penalised 20s for disrespecting double waved yellow flags brought out late on due to Robin Hafstrom stopping on track. Bach dropped to eighth, losing the Nordic 4 title to Kristiansen but still taking the NCF crown by one point.
Hoe and Morsing were promoted to fifth and sixth, taking the F5 titles in the respective series, and Olson was a non-starter. The champions were only confirmed two-and-a-half weeks after the finale, when the Danish motorsport federation issued the final points tables.
Kalousdian took the crown in Sweden’s FR1.6-based Formula Nordic series, which also concluded its season.
Results round-up [F5 entrants in italics, FR1.6 entrants in bold]
Race 1 (15 laps)
1 Sebastian Bach STEP Motorsport 16m57.056s
2 Magnus Pedersen MP Racing +6.664s
3 Mads Hoe Mads Hoe Motorsport +14.311s
4 Casper Nissen STEP Motorsport +14.671s
5 Melvin Kalousdian Race Team Gellerasen +19.439s
6 Silas Egedal Team FSP +19.540s
7 Hampus Varis +20.180s
8 Richard Olson +25.164s
9 Anton Morsing Mads Hoe Motorsport +28.742s
10 Victor Snebjoern Poulsen STEP Motorsport +29.049s
Pole: Kristiansen, 1m06.945s
Fastest lap: Bach, 1m07.270s
Race 2 (15 laps)
1 Egedal 17m03.274s
2 Nissen +3.521s
3 Marius Kristiansen Team FSP +4.152s
4 Pedersen +11.036s
5 Mads Hoe +18.371s
6 Kalousdian +19.031s
7 Bach +19.305s
8 Varis +19.674s
9 Morsing +25.609s
10 Mille Hoe Mads Hoe Motorsport +31.822s
FL: Kristiansen, 1m07.106s
Race 3 (15 laps)
1 Pedersen 16m59.788s
2 Nissen +2.150s
3 Egedal +6.171s
4 Kristiansen +9.338s
5 Mads Hoe +11.627s
6 Morsing +24.269s
7 Kalousdian +25.276s
8 Bach +26.047s
9 Alexia Danielsson Team FSP +26.537s
10 Varis+26.963s
FL: Nissen, 1m07.281s
Nordic 4 standings
1 Kristiansen 288 2 Bach 267 3 Mads Hoe 224 4 Nissen 218 5 Pedersen 202 6 Poulsen 142 7 Morsing 113 8 Egedal 103 9 Danielsson 56 10 Kalousdian 50
Danish F5 standings (incl. FR1.6)
1 Mads Hoe 327 2 Morsing 299 3 Mille Hoe 194 4 Kalousdian 166 5 Mads Larsen 140 6 Varis 124 7 Jorgen Leerskov 95 8 Robin Hafstrom 80 9 Niels Ejnar Rytter 69 10 Olson 68
Nordic Championship Formula standings
1 Bach 279 2 Kristiansen 278 3 Nissen 197 4 Poulsen 185 5 Mads Hoe 172 6 Pedersen 167 7 Morsing 113 8 Egedal 103 9 George Sebastian Pavolopoulos 86 10 Kalousdian 78
FNordic standings
1 Kalousdian 371 2 Olson 284 3 Hafstrom 258 4 Varis 234 5 Viktor Molander 119 6 Louise Larsson 116 7 Olivia Ernstsson 91 8 Joannis Matentzoglou 88 9 Andreas Aichhorn 66