Wet qualifying at Slovakia Premiere: Nicolas Beer leads the field

• Penalty for Nicolas Beer: Alessio Picariello gifted pole position in Race 1
• Beer on pole in Sunday’s second championship race
• Beer: “My first fastest time in qualifying – what a great feeling!”

Slovakia Ring – Formel ADAC heads towards season’s end: The ADAC’s high-speed academy is guesting at the Slovakia Ring, where the penultimate weekend of the 2013 season is already under way. It’s decision time in the drivers’ and team standings championship at the premiere in Slovakia, and consequently, the juniors were especially keen in qualifying on Saturday morning. Nicolas Beer (17, Denmark, Neuhauser Racing) set the qualifying best time in heavy rain. The Danish youngster required 2:19.386 minutes to cover the 5.922km track on his fastest lap and had a lead of 0.399 seconds on Alessio Picariello (20, Belgium, ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.) in second place.

Despite securing best time, Beer will start the first race from grid position eleven, as the Danish youngster incurred a ten-place grid penalty during the previous race weekend at the Lausitzring. “My first fastest time in qualifying – what a great feeling. Unfortunately, I will not start the first race from pole position, but at least I’m still on pole on Sunday,” said the Neuhauser Racing driver. On Sunday morning at 10:50am, he will take his place at the head of the grid in the second race where starting positions are determined by the second fastest lap times in qualifying.

Title favourite Picariello gifted pole position

Picariello was gifted pole position for the first race at the Slovakia Ring (Saturday, 6:15pm) as a result of Beer’s penalty. Consequently, the Belgian, who has led the overall standings since the season opener at Oschersleben, has a good chance of lifting the title before season’s end. If everything goes his way, Picariello could secure the championship in Slovakia after Sunday’s second race.

Difficult weather conditions presented the 20 young drivers with a tricky challenge in qualifying. After heavy showers, the rain did not let up until just before the start. It began to rain again mid-way through the session. Qualifying was interrupted with 13 minutes still on the clock when Martin Gatz (18, Germany, KSW Motorsport) spun off the track. Qualifying was interrupted once more shortly afterwards, owing to a collision between Maximilian Günther (16, Germany, ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.) and Hannes Utsch (18, Germany, JBR Motorsport & Engineering) in Turn Eleven. With just three minutes remaining, race stewards decided against a restart.

Championship candidate Günther on second row of grid

Coming home behind Beer and Picariello, Ralph Boschung (15, Switzerland, KUG Motorsport) coped best with the difficult conditions. The Swiss driver achieved a personal best time of 2:20.328 minutes, nearly a second down on front-runner Beer. Before the incident with Utsch, Günther had been in fourth place with a lap time of 2:20.494 minutes. The championship candidate moves up on the grid as a result of Beer’s penalty, placing him two positions behind team-mate and championship rival Picariello on the grid. ADAC Sports Foundation protégé Günther is 72 points off the championship lead in the run-up to the 19th race of the season.

Best result so far for Stéphane Kox

Hendrik Grapp (19, Germany, Germany) put his team, Mücke Motorsport, in a strong position. The 19 year-old set the fifth fastest time with a personal best time of 2:21.115 minutes, so three drivers from the Berlin-based team, who line up under the banner of ADAC Berlin-Brandenburg e.V., made the top five. Stéphane Kox (19, Netherlands, KUG Motorsport), daughter of former ADAC GT Masters champion Peter Kox, came home behind Marvin Dienst (16, Germany, Neuhauser Racing) in seventh place to achieve her best ever qualifying result in her Formel ADAC debut season. The KUG Motorsport driver shares the fourth row on the grid with Austrian driver Stefan Riener (18, Austria, Neuhauser Racing).

The ADAC is once again providing a live stream of the three Slovakia Ring races for fans unable to be there in person. The stream is freely available on the official ADAC Motorsport website at: www.adac.de/motorsport.

Nicolas Beer (17, Denmark, Neuhauser Racing):
“My first fastest time in qualifying – what a great feeling. Unfortunately, I will not start from pole position in the first race, but at any rate, I’m on pole on Sunday. We’ve shown how good our pace is – the car was just fantastic. If we can produce a similar performance in the first race, a very decent result should be possible. The rain might help us, but hopefully, it will ease off a bit, as conditions in qualifying were actually very tricky. Spray limited visibility considerably on the straights and I had to be very careful on the final lap. Slipstreaming in the race won’t really be possible to any great extent in these weather conditions because of wheel spin on the straights where the track is still wet.”