One Lap Onboard the JubuExige #776. Driver: Markus Nikowitsch. Racetrack: Slovakia /Slovakiaring. Date 10th of June.

Round 2 of the Lotus Cup Europe Series, Magny Cours France.
Onboard #76, Lotus Elise MK1, Production-Class.
Driver: Markus Nikowitsch
Qualifying: Pole in Class. Race Result Race 1: 2nd in class.
After leading until the last lap, I did let Matt Bartlett pass before the last chicane. He was later on the brakes ...
That was an unbeliveable wet track and the surface didn´t change over race distance of over 30 minutes.

Round 2 of the Lotus Cup Europe Series, Magny Cours France.
Onboard #76, Lotus Elise MK1, Production-Class.
Driver: Markus Nikowitsch
Qualifying: Pole in Class. Race Result: Race class won.
Video shows only the standing start (with a very nervous french mate on the left in a grey Elise) and Harveys crash. Sad, sad, also for the white 2-Eleven he hit.

Complete onboard view from this race and also from race 1 (unbelivable wet track) to come...

To close this season we thought about testing the car using slick tires instead of Toyo 888 or Yokohama A048 which we usually had to drive in Lotus Cup Europe or Eastern Europe. My only experience with slick tires were from the times I had a LMP-Prototype (Norma M20). So I was very exited about that test day. The track which we used for this testsession was the Slovakiaring, so a track which we know very well.
Result for this day (12th November 2011): running on Toyo R888 we generated a best laptime of 2.21.6 (so 3 seconds faster than last year), running on Yokohama slicks best laptime was a 2.16.0. More Infos on jp-racing.at

The Saleen S7R from race 1 didn´t want to start in this race, the Alfa 156 crashed in race 1, so grid again is decimated. Only the strong (and hell this car was loud) BMW M3 and the Porsche Cup 997 are standing in front of me. Temperatures now were quite good with around 10 degrees, so grip was much better than in the morning race. My start was again good and again could overtake the BMW on the straight line. What is the guy doing?? By the way, they all run on slicks, we use Toyo Sport Tires. Also does Tomas Kusy, which started behind me (the Honda powered Lotus Exige).

We tried to finish this race like race 1 but I did a big mistake in lap 8 when I tried to overtake 2 cars with 228km/h before the chicane. I came with both left wheels on the grass, hit the brakes, but still on the grass, reduced speed to around 200km/h and then got sideways. WTF…. Luckily there was no contact with the red Clio, driven by a young girl, but race was over for her, too. No contact with the stack of tires, but hit the backside of the curbs very hard, still going sideways with around 100 km/h.

Shame on me, I should have let both cars finish their overtaking action and then overlap both safely after (!) passing the chicane. At that time, I already was several seconds in front of Tomas Kusy, so no need to push that hard, I´d won this race anyway…. Now, again there will be some repairs for the guys from Jubu Performance. And for this time, I can´t call it “technical failure” it´s just my own stupidity.
Nevertheless: It was a difficuly race season for all of us. We did major steps at the end of the season, so hope we can proceed with that next year…
More informations on jp-racing.at