The Russian team wins in the "mustard capital of the world" – Dijon
On Thursday, Arctic Energy team drivers Sergey Egorov and Povilas Jankavicius spent an extra training day to tune the car for the short and very fast Dijon-Prenois track. Drivers finished both qualifications on Friday in second place, but the good pace allowed them to count on at least one victory out of four races during the weekend.
The first race took place early in the morning. The spectators on the track in Dijon, as well as the audience of the live broadcast on YouTube, have not really woken up yet, however, what was happening on the track affected everyone more than strong coffee: constantly replacing each other in the first place of the peleton, Povilas Jankavicius and Sebastien Seveau fought literally to the last centimeter, and only with the help of clever slipstream tactics on the final straight, Povilas overtook the Frenchman by 0.016 seconds (!), becoming the winner of the first race.
"Thank you for congratulations! You know, this is just an enchanting victory, I have never won like this in my entire life, this is a real photo-finish: 16 thousandths of a second! Emotions are overwhelming!” Povilas Jankaviсius shared his impressions of the victory.
In the second race, Povilas was in the lead throughout the entire race, confidently breaking away from Sebastien Seveau at the very beginning for three seconds, not allowing him to use the slipstream. Second victory!
The third race was affected by general tiredness from the busy calendar of races in August. Despite starting from pole position, Povilas makes a mistake and turns the car, rolling back to seventh place. The result is - the sixth position. An unfortunate mistake made the team captain Sergey Egorov think about the physical condition of Povilas and draw up an express recovery program before the fourth final race on Sunday. Therefore, on Saturday evening, Jankavicius went through 2 sessions of restorative massage (with a special emphasis on the muscles of the arms and neck), 10 hours of sleep and a special diet rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates. This gave the result: the rested driver finished second on Sunday, losing to the same Sebastien Seveau in a stubborn struggle.
“We assess the weekend extremely positively, the Arctic Energy team leads the standings, so we are focused on preparing for Magny-Cours. It is gratifying that we are recognized as the "gentlemen" of the weekend. This is due to the fact that when turning the car, Povilas made a titanic effort to catch it and not hit any other car that was in dangerous proximity," summed up the racing weekend Sergey Egorov.
Among other things, our compatriot Viktor Shaytar also did not remain without a podium on the track in Dijon: Viktor twice won the GT Sprint Championship race in a Mitjet V6. Victor finished the third and fourth races without a prize due to technical problems.