V8 Thunder Finnish Championship series round 3 was driven at Botniaring Racing Circuit on 31st July and 1st August. The weather was very unpredictable through the whole weekend and it caused a lot of extra excitement. Milla Mäkelä was 4th in the standings after two rounds.
The qualifying was started with slick tires as the track was drying up. Milla had a good pace on dry in the practise runs so even pole position was possible if everything works out.
“When we were at line up I told Milla on the radio it seems that rain is approaching fast so she needs to get the lap done at the very beginning of the qualy. She got the tires prepared on the out lap and the first lap was a good one. She had to overtake one car that was on their outlap during her fast run. That propably cost us the pole as Milla was less than 0,2 seconds off pole on her lap and then the rain started. Front row anyway on one shot qualy is good!” race engineer Miikka Mäkelä recaps the qualy.
Race 1 seemed to be a slicks race and almost everyone lined up with slicks on a damp track. Milla got a bad start from the wet side of the track and dropped to 3rd. After an eventful opening lap the rain started on the starting straight of the track.
“I lost visibility completely in the last corner of the track because of the rain and ran a bit wide. Then I saw the leaders of the race crash in the barriers in the first corner. I was lifted to aqua planning but was able to slow down so that only my front bumper touched the wall when went out of the track. It was fixed for the restart of the race and I did a solid drive to finish second. Though I did manage to snatch the fastest lap which meant pole position for race 2” Milla says.
On Sunday Milla had slicks on her car but only two minutes before the pit opening the team decided to change to intermediate tires, which means old and worn out rain tires. The track was half wet and half completely dry.
“I have never seen such a circumstance in a race. And it was raining on half the track also during the race so the 50/50 conditions stayed fairly constant through the race! Our tires were so hard that I was completely lost on the wet parts, but I caught up the front in the dry part. In the end I was in firm P3 and had fairly easy race to drive on good points again. Feels good to see we can finish on podium in any weather! Though I’m a bit gutted we didn’t get to race on dry track this weekend as we had the pace to fight for the win on dry. But solid points for the series and we are now holding a top 3 position in the standings.” Milla ends.