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Killarney, R7
Round 7 of the production car National Championship took place at Killarney on the 2 October 2010. Michael made amends for a difficult Friday by winning race 2 and and finishing 2nd overall for the day.
On Friday. Michael had an electrical problem that haunted the team the entire weekend. Despite the efforts of the team to fix the problem, the mysterious problem still existed. Michael did wee to qualify 6th on the grid and had settled to drive around the problem for the rest of the weekend. In race 1, Michael managed to have a good start and pass da Cunha in the Nissan on the opening lap. With his car handling extremely well, Michael hung on the the back of the leading pack and took a relatively easy 5th position. This would place Michael on the front row for the 2nd race of the day. In race 2, Michael had a good start and slotted in behind teammate Tschops Sipuka. With carnage in turn two, Michael and Tschops managed to open up a large gap on the opening lap. He then waited patiently before making a move 3 laps from the end to the take the lead and victory in race 2. Michael was ecstatic after the race and thanked his team for the extra hours that they had put in during the week to prepare the car. Race 3 featured a 90min endurance race with 2 compulsory 6min pit stops. With Michael still in the hunt for championship positions, In the feature race, Michael drove Tschops' car, as the team was concerned of the reliability of his car over race distance. Michael got off to a good start and could follow the pace setting BMW's in the opening laps. Unfortunately, his setup differed to Tschops' and the corner weights were slightly out as a result of different driver weights, and his left front delaminated after 15 laps. Michael then pitted and fitted a fresh set of tyres and added fuel for the next stint.
He then exited the pits and set consistent times to again run with the BMWs. However, after the stops, Fourie was not in the picture any more, as his his team had made a pit stop shorter than the required 6min. Michael drove consistently, but again suffered tyre delamination after another 15 laps. Michael pitted for the 2nd time and fitted a new left front tyre for the last stint.
As he was now in a comfortable 3rd position, he slowed his pace and lapped consistently to save his tyres till the end of the race. Michael finished in an excellent 3rd position, ahead of team Tschops Sipkua and Johan Fourie.
His 5th, 1st and 3rd places resulted in Michael finishing in 2nd overall for the day, a great result for Michael and the Team.
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