Nikola Sredojević

It was a good racing weekend. For Nikola a bit disappointing, as he always strives for better, but we should take in consideration that he is the youngest driver in DMV series and a rookie having just 2 racing weekends behind his belt. P8 in both races in Hahn are great results and an upward trend of his learning curve.

FRIDAY PRACTICE
Friday practice was business as usual; finding the best settings, getting familiar with the track and getting along with the strange weather conditions, which were, at times, exactly the opposite of the weather forecast. Nikola struggled with turn 9, to improve it by the end of the day and decent lap times were logged.

SATURDAY PRACTICE
On Saturday morning Nikola got up with strong allergic reaction. The whole racing weekend was under question mark, but anti histamine eye drops and nose spray cleared the condition in very short time, so Nikola just lost the morning session. Once on the track, he logged his best times and looked good for the race.

QUALIFICATIONS
Nikola was lucky enough to avoid too much traffic and pull at least one or two clean qualifying laps which put him at excellent P9. He was content with the result which was a step up from Oppenrod.

FIRST RACE
Nikola’s start was solid, and he soon found himself in the situation to try to gain a place up, which he did with the nice overtaking in lap3. He ended up 9-lap race at P8 and we were all more than happy with the result. Nikola was highly motivated for the second race which he was now starting from P8.

SECOND RACE
During the formation lap, disaster struck when the very same driver who cost Nikola 2nd race in Oppenrod hit him again from behind, causing him to spin and face backwards. Nikola had to wait for the whole field to pass before he turned and found himself at the back of the field, he could only recover to P14 at the start. However, Nikola’s “damage limitation” drive turned to be the best one we have seen to date. After quite frustrating first 3 laps in P14 when he was stuck in the traffic, he began his spectacular climb in 9-lap race, which was much more than “damage limitation”. It was second best result in 4 races and a fantastic drive to watch. After lap 5 he was 13th. Two laps to the end he was 11th and took 2 positions in lap 8 to end up 9th. Driver who caused the accident was penalized by the Race Control with 10 seconds penalty which put Nikola in P8 in the official standings.
At this point, we are quite happy the way Nikola is progressing in such a short time and looking forward to Wackersdorf racing weekend. You can see the pictures from Hahn here.