Walk Racing - Supercup Round 7 Report

The streets of Gilles Villeneuve Circuit hosted Round 7 of the 2015 GPVWC Supercup championship, with this event really being the jewel in the championships crown, and a pivotal point in the Drivers Championship. The question on everyone's lips was, can Ruud Hesterbeek hold onto the championship lead?

Estonia's Risto Kappet looked incredibly strong going into this race, with success just a week prior in the World Sports Series race, giving him a huge advantage with additional track and race knowledge.

Qualifying Result
1nd Ruud Heesterbeek
4th Risto Kappet

After qualifying, front row starting Heesterbeek said "Going into qualifying I was happy with the handling of the car and I was expecting to be fighting for pole position. My last lap was very clean and I got my braking points exactly right. In the end I was only four thousandths of a second quicker than Gaczella, and of course I was very happy with my first pole position of the season"

4th starting Kappet concluded by saying "Q: P4, i felt very good in qualfying and was certain of my speed, but just could not hook my split times together. P4 still not a bad result though.".

Race 1 Result
1st Ruud Heesterbeek
2nd Risto Kappet

Race winner Ruud said "My start was very good, I struggled a bit with the cold brakes and tyres in the first few corners, but I quickly built up a two seconds lead over Risto, who had moved up to second position. I had to push hard in the first stint because Risto was very quick, but I also made sure to save the rear tyres a bit, which helped me at the end of the stint. After the pitstop I had a lead of about four seconds over Risto. My pace on the primes was a bit better than his and I could take a relatively easy victory in the end."

2nd place, and still chasing that first win, Risto said "This race was almost identical to last times Monaco R1 outing. Was starting behind Gaczella who I know has bad starts, I myself had a great start, also passing Sven before T1 so it was again a Walk 1-2 from the beginning. Also just like in Monaco, i could pressure Ruud at the beginning and felt faster, but in the end of both stints i fell off a bit. Eventually finished quite far from Ruud and close to Gaczella in P3, but it was a controllled race. Great result for the team again."

Race 2 Result
3ed Risto Kappet
7th Ruud Heesterbeek

Seventh place was another solid finish for Heesterbeek, who said "The sprint race I started from 6th and I immediately gained two positions at the start. I was behind Risto in third, who was putting pressure on Melim in second. Unfortunately I got hit from behind at the hairpin, which caused me to spin and drop all the way down to 15th. I then had to make my way up to the front again. I didn?t have great straight line speed, but I was very confident on the brakes. I had a couple of nice moves in turn 6 and I managed to overtake eight cars in total, which meant I finished in 7th place.I am happy that we had very good pace here again and that we scored our second one-two finish of the season in race 1. Unfortunately I didn?t get the result I deserved in race 2, but that happens sometimes in racing. Hopefully we can continue this good run in Silverstone"

After a tough start to his race, Risto described the second race, "Only 6 places reversed so a good chance starting from P5, again had a great launch and was P3 into T1, had a good scrap with Pedro Melm, unfortunatley we had some touches and I lost time allowing him to take the position back so Tom van der Voort could pull away into the distance. Eventually Melm made a mistake under pressure and i got P2, but i got that taken away by Gaczella again. Unfortunatley I had a bit too much wing so i had trouble racing people even with better laptimes. Tried to save tyres till the end and finished another controlled podium".

"Ingeneral a superb result for me, best combined result so far in the series, continuing the upwards trend. Hope for more of the same and better for next rounds! And again cant forget to mention, that although Ruud had a bad incident in R2, we still keep getting great points for the team which is key.".

Championship Standings
1st Ruud Heesterbeek 202pts
7th Risto Kappet 97pts

With Walk Racing leading the championship with an impressive 299 points!

Team boss Mr C said "great results for the team and I can't be more happy of recent string of good results in Supercup, also I want to give a shout out to Emanuel Gaczela, immediately after the race he apologised for the incident with Ruud very nice of him, roll on Silverstone"