TIM VERY QUICK BUT NO CIGAR

The defence of Tim’s Porsche Carrera Cup Asia title for GruppeM got off to an excellent start in a difficult qualifying session at the Malaysian Grand Prix meeting on theweekend  of March 22/23, 2008 with him taking pole position for race 1.    The results of the two races however did not reflect his race winning pace.

The practice session on Friday showed that grip was at a premium and at the end of the session Tim was surprised to be second quickest as he had been unable to find a good set-up in the car   The crowded programme allowed only 10 minutes between this session and qualifying and so Tim and his engineer set about changing the set-up again and found some improvement on the first lap although understeer was still a problem.   Further changes to the rear wing however gave Tim better balance and he put in 3 laps all of which were good enough for pole with his best being almost half a second quicker than Christian Menzel of Germany, another top international driver to join the increasingly important series for 2008.

In race one Menzel got a slightly better start and a race long battle between the two ensued with only tenths of a second between them until fate struck on the last lap when Tim’s new Porsche 998 GT3 Cup car suffered a puncture and he could only limp home 5th after a great race.

Asked by the commentator if it had been an easy victory Christian Menzel said: “It was absolutely not easy at all!  It was a very difficult race.  My speed was a bit slow – I was losing one or two 10ths each lap.  Tim was faster than me and he really pushed.  I drove on the limit, and Tim was very unlucky to have the puncture.  It was a very nice race.”

The second race, held immediately before the F1 Grand Prix in the noonday heat of Malaysia turned out even worse for Tim as the differential unit failed on the warm-up lap and he was unable to even take the start.   The car is new for this series and the engineers could only put the failure down to vibrations when the rear tyre blew in race one; causing unseen damage to the internals of the final drive unit.

The next rounds of this series are in China at the Shanghai circuit on April 19/20 when Tim hopes to put more points on the board for his title defence as he won both races at that circuit last year.