With five drivers in with a shot at the title and ten teams on site, qualifying was always going to be a tight affair, and no more so for Risto Poutiainen and the Bad to the Bone fueller out of Rune Fjeld’s stable. The first two sessions resulted in a far from impressive eight second best, and the tension wound up a little more with a failure to stage thanks to transmission woes on the third attempt. With the dew descending in the dark, Poutiainen produced a cool as you like 4.912 to get in in second spot, but then had to endure a nervous wait to see if the session would be considered completed as a clean-up in a following pairing nudged things close to the curfew. When Erbacher, Anita Mäkelä and Jari Halinen made the decision to tow back, Risto was back in the game. A win over Timo Lehtimäki delivered the fastest speed of the meeting with a 4.867/313.80 to a 5.126/279 ending Lehtimäki’s own title hopes, and Poutiainen gained a freebie into the final round when Micke Kågered’s mount spat an oil filter off on start up in the semis.

FIA Pro Modified

It’s been quite a while since we’ve featured Urban Johansson and the VBS Corvette, but the Gotlander either managed to get down track when it counted, or receive a dose of luck when he couldn’t. A 6.171/220 was enough for third spot on the ladder (behind the soon to be crowned 2011 champion Michael Gullqvist’s 6.068/234 and Mats Eriksson’s 6.149/234; the startline given the suspended cars real problems on the launch) and a pair of 6.1s (including a first round best 6.106/231) defeated Roger Moore and Bruno Bader (ending the Swiss driver’s championship hopes). Both Eriksson and Ubbe hit violent tyreshake in their semi-final match-up, Johansson gathering things up quickly enough to record a 6.621/223 win and another slice of luck went Johansson’s way when final round opponent Johan Lindberg red lit away a 6.137/234 alongside Ubbe’s 6.204/233.