Calendar 2023
Schedule
Finnish Championship 2023 Calender:
Botniaring
10-11.6.2023
The first championship race of the season was held on the weekend of June 9-10 at the Botniaring Racing Circuit in Jurva. The first official tests of the season started on Friday. The
tests with the team RacinGPalvelu Finland went really well and the whole team got a lot of important laps under them. Friday afternoon, the car had to have a small repair done to the clutch.
The weekend format of the Finnish Championship series changed a little from last year, and all races and qualifying have been set into one day. The V8 Thunder class ran qualifying on Saturday and both weekend races on Saturday. In practice, this means for the drivers that they have to stay focused all day and there is no room for major mistakes during the day, because the time for repairing the car is really limited.
Rautjärvi's day didn't start without problems on Saturday. In the first lap of the quali, the master cylinder of the clutch broke down. Despite the situation, Rautjärvi managed to drive against his own driving habits without the clutch pedal to 2nd place in the qualifying. RacinGPalvelu's mechanics quickly fixed the car before the first race.
The races went without any problems and the car worked well. In the first race, Rautjärvi's start was a bit weaker and the driver who started from p3 got a really good start. Rautjärvi dropped to fourth place as a result of a small hit in the first corner. It took a little too much time to overtake the places back and the pole driver got a big lead. With good overtaking, Rautjärvi achieved 2nd place in the first race and lost only 0.3 seconds from the winner's lap
time.
The start of the second round of the weekend was a little better. Rautjärvi managed to keep his position after a start, but the first laps of the race were really slow. The lead escaped to a distance of about 4-5 seconds and the gap remained the same throughout the race. A sure 2nd place came from this race as well. Rautjärvi was able to drive in peace because those drivers behind were clearly far away from these top two drivers. A strong start to the year
and important series points for the driver and the team. The other driver of the team, Ilmari Wallo, is also strongly in second place in his own class called the Mtec Masters, where
points are collected by drivers over 50 years old.
Standings: https://www.autourheilu.fi/site/assets/files/1671/p-smra-2.pdf
Kemora
8-9.7.2023
The second weekend of the season was run on July 8-9 at the Kemora race track. Over the weekend, the team got one step closer to their goal.
The Qualifying went better. A clear improvement to Botniaring's qualifying time and the gap to the top car reduced and it was not more than half a second. However, from second place to the first race start of the weekend.
The first race start was decided to win and it knew a little risk-taking from Rautjärvi as well. We had to get to the top in the first corner. "At the start, we tried to anticipate the lights a little. After all, it went wrong and a 10-second time penalty clicked from a false start." Jonne commented. Rautjärvi led the race for a while until he let his competitor pass as easily as possible, so that time would not pass and the gap to those behind would remain as large as possible. The goal of the race after the start was to make a big gap and maintain the second position even though the time penalty. The team succeeded in this and finished second.
The second race of the weekend was taken much more calmly. Even slightly unstable weather was promised. At the start, Rautjärvi held second place and the race started well. After a few laps, however, a difference of about 3-4 seconds came to the top car and it remained like that throughout the race. During the race, there were significant events on the track with the drivers behind. Some of the drivers got involved in a crash. Because of that crash there was oil and other substances on the track, which made driving difficult. Rautjärvi said that it was difficult to catch up in those conditions, but the gap to the leading car was maintained until the end of the race. "The gap really didn't grow that big anymore and now that we get to some more familiar tracks, I believe that the victory will come." Rautjärvi said on his Facebook account.
After the Kemora weekend, Rautjärvi is firmly in second place.
Pärnu, Viro
11-13.8.2023
Ahvenisto
16-17.9.2023
Alastaro
29.9-1.10.2023