The inaugural Padborg Dansk Metal Formel Ford Festival took place in sunny and warm weather. Sixteen cars on track, including many makes of Duratec cars (Aquila, Van Diemen, Ray, Mtec...) made for a good race weekend with many tight battles.
With free practice, two preliminary heats, and a final all in one day, most competitors logged about 100 laps in a single day making for a great event! Given that the race fee also was only 150€, and there was 6000€ in prize money, the event must be considered a welcome addition to the FF race schedule and we certainly hope it will become an annual tradition!
The race was also the last of the Formula Ford North European Zone Championships, and Antti Buri (Mtec) came out as the series champion, followed by Milton Lundström (Van Diemen) who drove very well in Padborg, and with Miikka Mäkelä (Mtec) in the third place. Ville Kivinen won the "unluckiest driver of the weekend" award, with technical problems in all three races sadly forcing him to three consequtive DNFs. s2i Motorsport's RE85 fueled Zetec was the only Zetec engined car, which on a fast track like Padborg (and similar to earlier NEZ race in Falkenberg) has a significant acceleration and speed disadvantage. However, Per Stenius completed all races and the car showed reasonable lap times given this was Per's first race on this track. In heats 1 and 2 he even managed to keep pace with the back lying Duratecs.
It was, however, the Duratec powered Danes who dominated the weekend. The winner of the DMFFF final heat was Jesper Egebert, with his Ray ´08, second place fell to Mikkel Mac with his Van Diemen ´07, and third place came onto Dennis Lind (who made fastest lap in most heats) with his Van Diemen '08. Of the NEZ series competitors Milton Lundström achieved best results, but he too failed to reach the top 3 in any race. His results were qualifying 7th, heat 1 4th, heat 2 6th and final 4th. Antti was stuck fighting around positions 4-6 (his results 4th, 5th, 4th, and 6th in final), and Miikka Mäkelä around positions 9-10 (his results 10th, 9th, 10th, 10th). Per managed to reach position 11 in heat 2, having been 13 in heat 1, and finished 12 in the final. You can find a full list of results here (hmm - seems they removed the page afterwards... anyways, click the tilbage button to see if they have updated the results now...), and this site also offers live timing for Danish races.
The Padborg track has two long straights, with one straight having an bumpy chicane in the middle. This chicane became the Achilles' heel of Antti Buri, who failed to reach a good setup for good speed through this part of track. Milton seemed to have found a good setup and maintained strong speed through. The two ends of the track have tight hairpins, with the other end (following the start) having a series of alternating 90 degree turns (see track map at the Padborg track site). Given this, it was amazing that there were practically no contact related DNFs all across the race weekend, and that all three starts were done without any major crashes! The other end of the track has a long high speed turn, the "Big Mac", and for a good laptime maintaining pace here was important. The turn onto the main straight that follows was obviously another big differentiator.
As for the car marquees, Rays and Van Diemens dominated, and also made the podiums. Aquila showed good pace (especially since only two cars were present), while Mtecs lacked some pace (probably due to this being a relatively new track for both Mtec drivers).
Overall the event was a positive one for most drivers, and teams seemed to enjoy the high pace and large amount of starts in a single day. Hopefully the event will be repeated next year, with even more cars and also some Zetecs participating!
