Mondello Pk race: Nielsen, Katoh do it again

Starting on a slightly damp track on slick tyres, John Nielsen ran third after relinquishing second to Christian Pescatori in the Ferrari 333SP in the opening exchanges.

"I wasn't that confident that we could win today as we had opted for a wet set-up and I was losing time to the front two slightly," said the 1990 Le Mans winner. "But by keeping out of trouble when others didn't, we were able to come through and win it."

Nielsen's team mate Hiroki Katoh took over with an hour to go and held off the Ferrari to take the Japanese manufacturer's second win of the season. The Japanese only had to deal with slightly overheating rubber in the final stages and he strolled home to a popular win that saw his team mate donning his now characteristic Viking horns in celebration before dashing off to compete in a Danish Touring Car race on Sunday lunchtime.

Second place for Marco Zadra increased his championship points lead to 29 points and the Italian was more than happy with his third runners up position in succession.

"We have been very consistent this year with just one retirement and Christian has been very important this weekend for me to get good points again," he said.

'Pesca' was indeed at his best around the tight Mondello track and despite an altercation with an SR2 car that saw him spin and lose the lead at the 30-minute mark, he fought back spectacularly, lapping the Dublin track faster than anyone with a scorching best of 1m33.268s.

Completing the podium was the Racing For Holland pairing of Jan Lammers and Val Hillebrand in the black S101 Judd that started the race from pole position for the second event running. But just as at Donington last weekend, fortune was not smiling on the Dutch, as a couple of off-track excursions saw them lose two laps on the leading pair of SR1 runners.

The Kremer Lola of Sam Hancock and Jean Marc Gounon crashed out just before the two hour mark while leading during the second cycle of pitstops. Gounon, who had just taken over from Sam, took advantage of the first of two safety car periods to head the pack before a jammed throttle sent him in to the barriers at Turn 4.

"It is a big shame," said Gounon. "I think we could have won today, we are very disappointed because the car felt very good and Sam did an excellent job at the beginning of the race."

Team Ascari had a frustrating day when a decision to start the race on intermediate tyres backfired on them as the track completely dried in the opening laps. Ben Collins was thus forced to pit for slicks after losing two early positions.

From there his team mate Werner Lupberger developed a gearbox problem that brought the A410 in to the pits from third place. Despite nursing the car through the final stages of the race, Werner was forced to pit right at the end before crawling around to claim an ultimate sixth in SR1.

SR2 saw a superb race once again between the two top cars in the championship, the Swedish SRTS Lola Nissan and the Rowan Racing Pilbeam.

Local ace Damien Faulkner had opened the attack for the Swedes by hunting down the other Irish driver in the field, Warren Carway. Faulkner finally got by the Pilbeam at Kennedy's Rise on lap 4, but with the one extra driver change for the Stanley Dickens run team, Martin O'Connell shadowed the Lola throughout the second half of the race.

In a thrilling finish, the Lola had a 28-second advantage over its rival, but still had to make the mandatory third stop. On the penultimate lap of the race Thed Bjork came in to his pit, stopped and then got the signal to go, very nearly collecting the parked Ascari in the adjacent pit. Completing the SR2 podium was the Lucchini Engineering car of Piergiuseppe Peroni and Sebastian Ugeux.

The penultimate race in this year's championship takes place at Nurburgring on 15-16 September, where John Nielsen and Hiroki Katoh will be looking to carry on from where they left off in Ireland.