Estoril: Lola Cars, Team Sweden race report

The Sports Racing Team Sweden Lola B2K/40 was again on the podium after the second round of the FIA Sportscar Championship, held on Sunday at the Estoril circuit in Portugal.

Niklas Loven led the SR2 category in their Nissan powered Lola for the first half hour, but was forced to yield the place to the Alfa Romeo powered Lucchini team when his rear tyres began to lose grip. "It was a great start" said the young Swede. "I couldn't believe that I was leading the class. I do Super Touring racing and I always start like that, giving 120 per cent. My tactic is to push, push, push and it was working fine until I started losing grip. Then the Lucchinis caught me!"

Mattias Andersson took the yellow, Sandvik sponsored Lola at half distance and managed to keep the Lucchinis in sight, but the Italian team had a trick up their sleeve as they made their tyres last the full duration of the race, gaining at least half a lap in the process. "We really tried hard, but we have a lot of work to do before the next race at Brno" says team principal Stanley Dickens. After two rounds of the FIA Sportscar Championship Lola CarsInternational is second in the Constructors Championship, and the Sports Racing Team Sweden is second to Lucchini Engineering in the Teams Championship. The event was won by Team Oreca's Dallara Judd driven by Olivier Beretta and Nicolas Minassian, who finished nearly a lap ahead of the Courage Competition C60JX Judd of Didier Cottaz and Boris Derichebourg.

SR2 result at Estoril:
1, Piergiuseppe Peroni/Mirko Savoldi (Lucchini Alfa Romeo) 89 laps in 2h 30m57.807s
2, Gianni Collini/Fabio Mancini (Lucchini Alfa Romeo), 88 laps
3, Niklas Loven/Mattias Andersson (SRTS Lola Nissan B2K/40) 88 laps
4, John Stack/Sam Hignett (Pilbeam Nissan MP84) 87 laps

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