Current UIM F2 World Championship leader Erik Edin piled the pressure on his main rival, Pierre Lundin during qualifying this evening in Tønsberg, Norway.

Edin went into the final ‘shoot out’ having posted the second quickest time in Q2. He then set a 43.00 second lap leaving his fellow Swede with no option to but to chase hard and better the time.

Lundin responded and was absolutely flying until he ‘popped’ a turn mark at the bottom of the course, that error demoted him to tenth position on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

Edin said;

When I posted my time, I knew that I had made a couple of mistakes and I thought Lundin would have beaten it.

Austria’s Rup Temper was second quickest, impressive in that during Q3, Pål Virik Nilsen had driven into the back of the Austrian’s DAC hull. Temper, came out fairly unscathed, Nilsen was okay, although his Molgaard hull was severely damaged.

Young Alberto Comparato, continues to impress, third fastest today. The Italian lies third in the championship in his first season of UIM F2 competition.

Frode Sundsdal wowed his home crowd with the 4th fastest time, the Tønsberg resident and organiser of this event was delighted with the performance.

Britain’s Matt Palfreyman wasn’t happy with fifth as he had placed higher in Q2, but considering the huge task and effort his team had put in to get him to Norway, it was a very worthy qualification performance.

Tobias Munthe-Kaas made his first ever UIM F2 ‘shoot out’ and delighted his mentor, F1H2o pilot Marit Strømøy with sixth fastest.

The race is due to start at 16.30 CET tomorrow.

Photos: Chris Davies