Marijn van Kalmthout ends Klaas Zwart dominance in Zolder
Race 2
Ahead of the second race, many considered Marijn van Kalmthout and Klaas Zwart to be the two top favorites for the win again. The latter was forced to start as the last man in the field of eight though after not finishing in the first race. Van Kalmthout, who started from pole position, thus had a big advantage.
Comeback Zwart
Van Kalmthout was the quickest to leave the grid in the 20 minutes heat. Zwart is a lot faster than most of his opponents and rushes toward the lead of the race in no time.
He gets past six drivers with amazing speed to climb into second position after only one lap. However, he’s already trailing the leader by 4,5 seconds at that point, meaning that he really has to push his car.
Rest of the field
Ingo Gerstl was driving around in third position, while reigning champions Henk de Boer occupied fourth spot with his Champcar. The first car from the Masters Class raced around at P5. Karl-Heinz Becker has a 1,4 seconds lead on Damien Charveriat, who has had some interesting battles with Becker in the past. Carlos Antunes Tavares (7th) and Alain DeBlandre are the remaining two drivers.
Another crash for Zwart
While Marijn van Kalmthout drove to the fastest racing lap in lap 3 with a time of 1.19,318, Klaas Zwart came to realize that it was not meant to be for him this weekend. The man who was still unbeaten when he travelled to Zolder once again did not finish. Zwart again lost control of his car to see his race come to an abrupt halt. This time, it wasn’t the Bianchi curve, but the Jacky Ickx curve where his race came to an end.
Like a rocket
From there on, Van Kalmthout goes like a rocket. He is simply unstoppable in his Benetton. He has a 30 seconds lead on runner-up Gerstl after 6 laps. Henk de Boer, who was struggling a bit with his Champcar at the technical circuit of Zolder, raced around eight seconds behind Gerstl.
Doubling the majority of the drivers
The light blue Benetton with the orange helmet continued to impress and didn’t show any mercy with the rest of the field. Van Kalmthout needs only thirteen laps to double the majority of the drivers, with Gerstl and De Boer being the only two drivers racing around in the same lap as the Hoofddorp native. Gerstl is trailing by 35 seconds, while the gap with De Boer is almost one minute. Van Kalmthout then hears a disturbing noise in his car and opts to take it easy in the remainder of the race. His car doesn’t cause him any more problems and he records his second win of the weekend. Again, Gerstl and De Boer finish in second and third position respectively.
Becker unbeatable in the Masters
Whereas DeBlandre is forced to steer his car into the pits, Becker is on his way to record his sixth consecutive win in the Masters Class. He has a seven seconds lead on Charveriat and the French driver is unable to close the gap in the last minutes of the race.
The Le Mans born Charveriat finishes in second position, while Tavares has to settle for third spot.
