FIA Top Fuel Dragster

Stig Neergaard (Ivan Sansom photo)

The fuel car entry was a perfectly formed octet led for much of qualifying by Stig Neergaard, enabling the Dane to pick up a number of qualifying bonus points thought the four rounds and snatching back low qualifier spot (with a 4.179/275.33) after Finnish ski-jumping legend Janne Ahonen had briefly bested him with a 4.186 in the penultimate session.

Liam Jones (Ivan Sansom photo)

The first round of eliminations pitted Neergaard against Antti Horto, Anita Mäkelä against Timo Lehtimaki in an all Finnish match-up, Ahonen against Liam Jones and Mikael Kågered going head to head with Stefan Gunnarsson. The outcome of these quarterfinal match-ups had a shock or two on the lower half of the ladder with Jones transitioning from the instant smoke that characterized his qualifications and buttoning down a clean 4.197/275.22 to add Ahonen (who broke traction down track on a 4.978) to the Brit’s list of Finnish icons downed on their home soil.