James Thompson: European Champion 2009 with HRS Motorsport.
The FIA ETCC, European Touring Car Championship, held in a single practice on the Portuguese circuit of Braga, confirmed the high quality of the set up and the race management played all season by the Hexathron Racing Systems’ Motorsport division on the Honda Accord Euro R of the Hartmann Racing Team: the really fast British driver James Thompson, first leader of the Team and HRS driver of reference in the WTCC, is the 2009 European Touring Car Champion, a result achieved through continuous and unlucky surprises.
Throughout the Portuguese weekend, characterized by sudden rain and particularly difficult weather conditions, Thompson was enabled to express the best of his undoubted talent, being the fastest one since the practice sessions where the HRS Motorsport staff managed by Marco Calovolo studied carefully the best set ups to be applied subsequently in the qualifying and the races.
Just during the qualifying single-round, held in wet conditions, James Thompson remained at the top of the list until few minutes before the end, when the track started to dry very quickly making Thompson to get the sixth place on the grid a less than a second behind the poleman Norbert Michelisz at the wheel of the official SEAT Leon TDI.
In Race 1, the English driver was able to finish third behind Michelisz and the Franz Engstler’s BMW 320 Si, but the real masterpiece of strategy and driving happened in Race 2 the result of which was decisive for the awarding of the European title.
Marco Calovolo decided to make the Thompson’s Honda Accord Euro R race with four slick tires in the final relay, even if the track was still wet and the competitors preferred to use rain tires or mixed solutions, such as the one adopted by the provisional leader Michelisz whose Seat Leon mounted front slick tires and rear intermediate tires.
In sixth position at the start, because of the inversion, in the grid of Race 2, of the first eight position gained in Race 1, at the first corner James Thompson found himself involved in a multiple collision that saw him finishing eleventh the first lap. Taking part in one of the best race of his important career, "JT" was thus able to masterfully manage his slick tires on the still wet track, recovering all his competitors and showing himself at the head on the finishing line.
The third place in Race 1 and the win in Race 2 have therefore been crucial for the victory in the Fia ETCC, considering both the fifth place gained in the second relay of the race by Michelisz and the double position of honour gained by Englster, second in the championship.
For HRS Motorsport is another great result: after the Indipendents’ Touring Championship in Denmark with Per Poulsen, unlucky in the Portuguese race, this is the first international title (already obtained in the season of its debut) won by the new company from Milan, a success fully empowered by the experience at the top of international motorsport in the last two decades.
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