LANIK managed to reverse his odds last weekend at Thruxton, the UK’s quickest race circuit, by finishing 6th and 3rd for Round 7 & 8 of the 2008 ELF Clio Cup. Originally the Austrian racer finished 4th, but after a 30-second time penalty for the race winner, Niki got promoted to an official 3rd place. Unfortunately this was only decided after the actual podium celebration so Niki wasn’t able to spray champagne with the other podium finishers, 2nd place Stephen Hunter and race winner Paul Rivett of the JHR Developments team. This also saw the Y4HR Miracle Drywash team’s driver move from 17th back up to 12th in the 2008 championship.

QUALIFYING went well from the start. The Miracle Drywash-sponsored team was out on track the first time with their new engine, the 2.0 litre 205hp Renault engine, after the engine blow-up at Donington Park. Niki qualified the Youth For Human Rights Clio 5th for both rounds. “Qualifying went pretty well, in fact much better then at Donington Park. I’m pretty comfortable with Thruxton, but still it is hard to get two good laps in during qualifying. The track is also extremely abrasive so I had to make sure I don’t wreck my tyres during qualifying. It’s a very tricky circuit – when you have one small lift at 120mph you can easily loose one second, so being gentle with the accelerator is extremely important through the 100mph+ corners such as Goodwood and Church.” commented the 21-year old on his 5th place qualifying.

(more…)

CHAMPIONSHIP winning Ashurst Wood-based Niki Lanik, racing for the Youth 4 Human Rights Miracle Drywash team, dropped out of the top ten in the 2008 ELF Clio Cup Championship standings last weekend at Donington Park after a non-finish followed by an engine blow-up. Saturday’s disappointing qualifying session found the team starting 10th out of 28 cars in both rounds. The team was 0.400 off pole position; no explanation was found why Lanik lost up to 0.3 seconds going uphill in the 2nd of 3 sectors. “I heard a strange vibration coming from the car during right corners, but we couldn’t find the source of the problem. After the engine blew up in Round 6 when the valve of cylinder 1 disintegrated there was a definite point of discussion within the team whether this was a possible 2-3% power loss from the first cylinder. It’s not definite, but it might explain the poor qualifying times in the 2nd sector.” commented Niki, having studied the 1st year of a Motorsports Engineering degree.

LANIK, the Miracle Drywash-sponsored race driver, had a 30-minute qualifying session boosting himself up to 3rd place in the first 15 minutes. The session was stopped due to a red flag. Lanik opted for a wrong decision with his tyres during the stoppage and wasn’t able to use the full potential of new slick tyres in the remaining 15 minutes – Niki qualified 10th for both races. “Testing and qualifying wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for. Donington used to be my strongest circuit. I’ve had fastest laps and won races here before, and now we’re 10th?” said Niki, double Clio Winter Champion.

(more…)