November 25, 2007
Published on tags: Superleague
At 14:23 local time light blue nose cone of FinOz/EIRE car n:o 2 comes slowly out from the pitbox, soon all cameras at the pitlane turns to follow the blue and white helmet of the driver of the car. Kari Koski has made his racing comeback exactly 403 days since his last F1VWC season race. Back then it was 2006 season and he was racing few races for Stealth International, it's been 503 days since his last FinOz race (US GP, Indianapolis, finished 4th).

At 14:27 first timed lap is completed, lap time 1:20.655 puts Kari into last over 5 seconds behind the quickest time so far. Next lap is 2.1 seconds quicker (1:18.509), and then next one another 0.7 seconds quicker (1:17.865) and times are down to 1:17's. 1:17.8, 1:17.7, 1:17.5, 1:17.8, on lap 8 Kari pulls back into pitlane after setting his best on S1 and S2. Car is pushed back to the garage. Kari jumps out the car and has a chat his chief mechanic and then group of mechanics starts making adjustments to the car.

Exactly 23 minutes later Kari sits down to the car again and is ready to make some more laps. 1:18.5, 1:17.7, 1:17.5, 1:17.4, 1:17.2, 1:17.1, 1:16.8, 1:16.7, 1:16.5, 1:16.2, 1:16.046 Kari sets string of his personal best lap times and moves closer to the p1 lap time, it's time for another set of adjustments and Kari heads down to pitlane.

New set of tyres and the aim is set to 1:15's, after couple laps on low 1:16's lap time of 1:15.885 is set and team is clearly delighted about the progress on track and how quickly the lap times came down to the competitive level, it took 18 laps to get under 1:16 and the car and the drivers clearly has more potential to get into low 1:15's or even under. Now Kari sets string of quick lap times all into 1:15's. Another set of new Bridgestone rubbers and lap times drops again few tenths, now Kari's quickest is 1:15.410 but he wants even better time. Lap 31, first sector is 23.101 that's his quickest, 2 tenths quicker than on his 1:15.410 lap. 2nd sector 52.671, the pace is still the same, 3 tenths quicker than his previous best. Car goes over the line and lap time is 1:15.237. S3 time isn't as quick as on 1:15.410 lap (22.420 vs. 22.566), but still lap time is .017 seconds quicker.

Kari heads back to pitlane and car is pushed back into garage, today's run is done and now we have to wait and see what happens at qualifying, but for sure, Kari is back in business?

?I was actually quite nervous, but still quite eager to get back behind the wheel. I wanted to do some race this year and it was shame and made me quite sad I missed my favorite races on my fav tracks like Montreal, Magny-Cours, Silverstone and Monza. To be honest I haven't had a good Brazilian GP so maybe this is not ideal place to make a comeback and can you even call this a comeback? It's last race of the season and I really don't know what's going to happen with my driving future and what I will do on 2008. But when this opportunity came to me I didn't have to think twice would I take the challenge. There are such great drivers out there, drivers like Steve Elencevski, Andy Graydon and David Brown for example, they are the drivers I've had a long history together and when there is chance to race against drivers like they are, I will do anything to make it happen.

I was very positively surprised about my progress on track and how quickly I was able to make quite competitive laptimes. I know we are on early days on this race weekend, but still it's very good to head to the qualifying knowing I can do quite well out there, I want to be well in top-10 and on the points at the race. Race will be very difficult as it's long and track is quite demanding and I have had such a long break since my last race it can be difficult to find the rhythm and race with other cars. Going solo on FP or winter tests is always much much much easier than doing the whole race flat out with other cars.?