24.10.2008 Niko wins at Zolder Niko packeted his season with great fashion in the final round of Belgian GT Championship at Zolder. Without any earlier experience about circuit, Niko had good pace in Friday's free practice and set Westend Racing's Porsche 911 GT3 to the top of the list in division 3. "Honestly, I'm a bit surprised our superiority in today's sessions. We expected to get more challenge from our rivals especially here in Zolder which is very familiar to local teams and drivers. Anyway, I'm sure we have to improve laptimes in tomorrows's qualifying" Niko commented at Friday evening. At Saturday Niko took over first qualifying session and chased pole position for Sunday's race 1. He had that attachment until very last minute of session, but finally was dropped to second grid by First Motorsport's Nyels Lagrange. "After I managed to set top time I decided to stay on track. At the same time team had eye's on monitor for following laptimes of Lagrange. First it looked that he can not go under my laptime, so team called me in. Unfortunatelly, in the very last lap he managed to do it and got the pole" Niko explained. Second driver of Westend Racing, Jorma Vanhanen, made second qualifying and took fourth grid for Sunday's race 2. After the qualifying Niko wasn't satisfied for set-up and team made some changes to rear before first one hour race. "In the first lap I need to be aggressive and make my way to the lead as quickly as possible. If I get stuck behind slower ones, it will make it very hard then" Niko spoke about his tactic before the start. When red lights went off Niko's tactic really works. Lagrange left behind in first corner and when Niko got throught the action without any major collision everything look fine for Finnish squad. During the stint Nurminen had brilliant pace all the time and after 34 minutes, when it was time for driver change, the gap was already 19 seconds. Jorma Vanhanen took the wheel and put some nice effort before bringing Westend Racing's Porsche to finish line for it's maiden international class victory! "That was cool race. There was plenty of action everywhere in first lap. All of my risky overtaking's played a key role for winning the division 3. When I was leading I just gave my best by setting equal laptimes and managed to do huge gap before pitstop" Niko said. Second race of Sunday was driven later afternoon in the sunset. According to sporting regulations, it was Vanhanen who made the start this time. Bright sunset made some diffculties for drivers and also Vanhanen outbrake himself in chicane. Reversing was judged to dangerous driving and Westend Racing got 10 second Stop&Go penalty. When the penalty was suffered Vanhanen bring the car to the pitlane and hand it over to Niko. Nurminen started huge chase and raise their position up to second before safety car came out due to oil in some corners. Restart wasn't good this time for Niko and after hassle in first corner the Finnish squad found themself in third position behind McDonalds Racing's biturbo Porsche. "After the restart action was provided by division 1 cars. Some of them were slower than us and some were lapping us. It really made difficulties to fight for second place" Niko told. In the totally latter part of the race Niko was reached McDonalds Porsche of Jean-Claude Voets and succeed to pass him in corner two. When arriving next time to main straight Niko realized that was a last lap of the race and thus he marked second place for Westend Racing in division 3. "I was chasing Voets so hardly that I couldn't see how many minutes were left. However, I knew we are in finish soon, so I had to overtake him as soon as possible. After penalty second place feels like victory. This has been great weekend for us!" Niko said. << back to news