Results were hard to come by for Team Bleekemolen at Oschersleben as they were unable to get the perfect setup needed for the NASCAR GP Germany.
Race Planet Team Bleekemolen had a large potential to fight for podiums and victories at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, but problems with setups prevented the Dutch team from competing at the top in the races.
The weekend in Germany had gone off to a great initial start across both EuroNASCAR PRO and EuroNASCAR 2. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen and Marc Goossens were all inside the top-6 in ENPRO while Melvin de Groot led the combined times in EN2.
However, things changed in the colder temperatures of Saturday. During ENPRO’s Qualifying session, Goossens only barely made it into the Superpole while Sebastiaan was left behind in 13th place.
Thomas Dombrowski also took part in the session and qualified the No. 66 Rellumix Camaro in 14th, but the young Frenchman chose to not compete in the races.
Things weren’t any better in EN2’s Qualifying either. De Groot was only able to qualify the No. 69 Race Planet Toyota in ninth, 0.740 seconds behind pole sitter Patrick Schober.
De Groot was beaten by Dombrowski, who qualified eighth despite only being 11th fastest in Practice. Meanwhile, Michael Bleekemolen and Reza Sardeha qualified 17th and 20th respectively.
Mixed fortunes were also experienced during the races. Goossens had enough speed to finish third on the road, but a penalty dropped him to fifth and he didn’t have the one lap pace to qualify high for Race 2.
Sebastiaan had the opposite problem: His one lap pace was strong enough to put him sixth on the grid for Race 2, but he didn’t have the speed to match the front runners and was only able to finish eighth.
“We were able to finish on the podium sometimes, but we’ve been really unlucky,” said Sebastiaan before Race 2.
“Also this week we’ve been struggling, we were fast on Friday with all cars and then on Saturday morning when the temperatures dropped, we had no grip on the rear and I ended up at 13th. Yesterday in the race I had a decent time, so I’m happy to be at least a little bit further to the front.”
The trend continued in EN2 with de Groot only able to beat Dombrowski for eighth. Michael and Sardeha had a better time and finished 13th and 17th respectively, although setup changes still need to be done for Sunday’s races.
Sunday brought better fortunes for Team Bleekemolen as they narrowly missed out on the overall podium. De Groot was fourth, but still led a Team Bleekemolen 1-2 in Legend Trophy. Dombrowski recovered from a near-spin at Triple to take tenth.
Despite only finishing 15th overall, Michael was happier with how the car drove. It’s a sentiment that Goossens echoed during his interview with Andre Wiegold before ENPRO’s Race 2.
“We struggled a little bit with the setup yesterday,” said Goossens. “We managed to finish third on the road and with the starting penalty we finished fifth in the end, but lap times weren’t good enough.”
“We made the car a little bit better in the Sunday warm-up, Michael was also not complaining from the EuroNASCAR 2 race. There’s a lot of work to do, but nothing’s impossible and we keep on fighting for it.”
Ultimately, Team Bleekemolen was unable to do much in ENPRO Race 2. Sebastiaan and Goossens were caught in the train for fifth position and didn’t have the speed to advance forward.
“It wasn’t really an exciting weekend, although Melvin did perform well,” said Michael Bleekemolen in Team Bleekemolen’s post-race press release. “We had problems with oversteer with all the cars.”
“At the previous race in Most that went a lot better, now we couldn’t get the setup right. Still, we weren’t far off, but we didn’t finish in the positions we had hoped for.”
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Last Updated: 17 December 2024