ZOLDER. The poor climatic conditions on Saturday meant that Friday’s qualifying session for the Belcar Home Race was the decisive one. After another nail biting qualifying session on Friday David Hart and Jeroen Bleekemolen failed to clinch the pole by a mere 2 hundredth from Bert Longin and Anthony Kumpen. So for the SRT team from Merchtem another second place on the grid in Zolder, and in the meanwhile the team also managed a 5^th place with Thierry Soave and Eric Cayrolle in the first race of the French GT-championship at Dijon. It will be a busy weekend for SRT tomorrow, as on Sunday for them there will be an extension to the Mediagroep Van Dijck Belcar championship with the second race of the FFSA GT weekend at Dijon to contend with.

It was touch and go during the fight for pole on Friday. Both Corvettes smashed the old lap record of Zolder and will both be on the front row of the grid tomorrow. “The track has also become faster”, David Hart explained. “The asphalt has improved no end and the chicanes are easier to handle. I was really surprised that the track would be so much faster.”

Jeroen Bleekemolen came very close to Bert Longin’s fastest lap, 2 hundredths to be precise, but just could not achieve pole. “Unfortunately I didn’t have an ideal lap, the rubbers were no longer 100% and there was a fair amount of traffic on the track. But the most important thing is that we’re there tomorrow. It definitely promises to be an open battle between the two ‘Americans’…”

In second qualifying, David Hart proved his value by setting fastest time in wet conditions. 

In France Soave and Cayrolle started from 10^th place and after a solid drive finished in 5^th place. In contrast to the qualifying sessions, which was held on a wet track, it remained dry for the race in Dijon. The French duo had a good start and systematically gained ground, lying in 7th place after the driver changeover. Eric Cayrolle then gave everyone a taste of his skills and climbed up into the top-5. He also set a fastest race lap, a mere one tenth slower than the Corvette C6-R of Markus Palttala. Soave and Cayrolle finally took the chequered flag in 5^th place.

At the end of the day Patrick Selleslagh seemed a happy man: “Up to now this is the best result for Thierry en Eric, and we are obviously satisfied. Today both the cars and the drivers were really in top form and this is a hopeful sign for tomorrow’s competition.”