Radical Cup Sweden round 9, Ring Knutstorp - 5 September 2007


Christian Kronegård leads the pack Christian Kronegård leads the pack
The Swedish Radical championship is getting really hot as only two meetings of the 11-meeting, 22-race series draws to a close.

Championship leader Niclas Lovén had a tough weekend when the series visited Ring Knutstorp this weekend; Niclas was struggling with his gripless Prosport, and mechanic Ian Jacobs worked frantically to get the car to handle. Niclas finally got a 4th place in the first race.

2nd in the championship is Finnish driver Emma Kimiläinen, she too was struggling to be on her usual relentless pace.  She finally managed to squeeze herself into third place before the flag dropped. Just in front of her was the very fast Christofer Karlsson, who had a pretty calm race as he pulled a gap on Emma in the beginning of the race.

The win was taken by the awesome Christian Kronegård, who qualified .48 second in front of the others. M&W Radical motorsports (works team) team manager Raffi Aroyan said:  “Christian’s pace was tremendous, we’ve nailed a perfect setup that Christian is really comfortable with, and on a short circuit like Knutstorp 0.48 seconds is light-years”.

Christian had a great rolling start, and pulled away to a 3 second gap to second placed Christofer Karlsson. In the final laps of the race the gap closed in to about 1 second.

Sunday morning didn’t bring as much sunshine as Saturday had, but the rain held off for the second race. Christian had pole, with Emma and Niclas behind him. Emma unfortunately had problems on the warmup lap, as her Prosport came to a sudden halt (ignition problem).

Christian Kronegård
Christian Kronegård
Christian got a good start and pulled a gap of half a second per lap. Niclas wasn’t that lucky, he got too much wheelspin in the start and dropped to 5th place.  Niclas, who now had a imbalanced car said “we took a gamble with the setup for the second race an it didn’t pay of, as a real racer I have to say I’m sorry that Emma’s car stopped, but it good for me in the points”. Niclas finally came fourth as Alex Engblom’s car was failed in scrutineering due to being underweight.

The fourth (later third) place was taken by rookie Andreas Ebbesson who had a great race from sixth place on the grid.

Christian Kronegård made an impressive race, finally crossing the line almost 5 second in front of Christofer Karlsson. Christian said: “this weekend was great, the team has done an amazing job with the car.  I think I’ve I proved that I´m the fastest in the championship this year”.

Team manager Raffi Aroyan says: “Christian had a tough start to the season being to hard on the drive train, breaking chains, gearboxes and drive shafts, but he has learned to adapt his driving style to the car, and I think 5 wins of the last 6 races is proof of that. If he plays his cards right I think he has a bright future in sportscar racing, and he also admits that’s his goal”

The next race in the championship is on the twisty Sturup track in southern Sweden, and after that it’s the grand finale at Mantorp Park. As Sweden is getting colder and colder the Radical championships is just getting hotter!



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