Tuomas Pöntinen’s second EuroNASCAR PRO outing in Germany was hampered by continuous setup issues, leaving the Finn unable to perform at his best.
Talented Finnish driver Tuomas Pöntinen returned to the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series for the NASCAR GP Germany at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben last month.
The 23-year old was once again trusted by Marko Stipp Motorsport to race the No. 48 GTOmega Chevrolet in the EuroNASCAR PRO class after he made his debut with the team in Vallelunga, where he scored two top-10 finishes.
Pöntinen had been hoping to at least be able to replicate the results that he got in Italy on the home race of MSM, but sadly things didn’t go that way for everyone in the team.
The ominous signs were shown right from Friday Practice, where Pöntinen was only 19th fastest in the combined times. More setbacks were to come during Qualifying as Pöntinen was unable to set a good lap time because of a number of factors.
“It was really difficult,” said Pöntinen on his Qualifying performance, as reported on his social media post-race. “The fastest lap was cancelled because of the yellow flag. I also made a lot of mistakes on my own and had laps ruined by the traffic jam.”
After the difficulties, the team chose to change the car’s setup before the first EuroNASCAR PRO race. The changes proved to have an immediate effect: Pöntinen was able to gain five places and finish twelfth, just 5 seconds away from tenth place finisher Ryan Vargas.
“We changed the car a lot for the race and it felt much better. Not good but better, but tomorrow we’ll go harder,” said the 23-year old driver on his Race 1 result.
With the performance seemingly improving, MSM mechanics decided to adjust the setup again in the hopes that they can gain more pace for the Sunday race. However, the setup changes made the car worse to handle, something that Pöntinen found out the hard way.
“We changed the setup again, but this time we went backwards,” states the Finn. “We lost our pace and I had to be completely defensive. Around the tenth lap, I fought hard with a friend until we got hit and spun. After that, we climbed back up a little and finished 16th.”
In the end, Pöntinen’s results were only enough to advance him up to 23rd place in the overall standings. The Finn hopes that he’ll be able to show his true potential once again during the season finale at Zolder, providing that he was able to secure a deal to race the No. 48 Chevrolet once again.
“It was a really difficult weekend for our team,” sums up Pöntinen. “We were lost with car setup all weekend. They did everything they could to get the car working the way we wanted to, but lack of practice made it difficult for all of us. Let’s hope we can still get to Zolder to show our real pace!”
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