Nordic GT3 - Pärnu report

Markus won his first Nordic GT3 race in Ahvenisto back in May, but missed the 2nd race at Alastaro due to commitments with Eurosport. In Pärnu, Estonia, Markus was back in action with No Brakes Motorsport, but it was a weekend to forget for the team. First bad news arrived a few days before the event when Jukka Ylitalo's Cup S engine wasn't rebuilt in time. The free practice sessions were again excellent for Markus and Petri Mannila in the #88 Cup S and the duo regularly set fastest times lapping even quicker than the previous track record. However, in the last session of Friday, the engine gave up and the weekend was over.  Petri headed back to Spain and Markus stayed in Estonia to follow the race and support NOB's two Cup cars.

However, Erkka Suominen asked Markus to race with him, so Markus was back in the saddle. Erkka missed all the practice sessions and arrived just in time for qualifying on Saturday. This wasn't exactly optimal as Erkka is only in his 2nd year of racing and had never been to Pärnu - a very tricky circuit, with fast blind corners and very bumpy surface. The newly formed pair went for it with a never say die attitude and even though not having the pace for scoring podiums, got a clean weekend and scored 6th and 5th overall in the Cup class Porsche. Markus was even fighting in 2nd place during his opening stint in Sunday race barely having to let the GT3 Lamborghini go. NOB's 4th car, the Cup of Petri Lappalainen was in excellent speed, throughout the weekend but had to retire from 2nd race even before the start with broken transmission, so it was up to Erkka and Markus to keep up the colours of the team.

"As always, we had great speed with Petri and were expecting to go for our first double win. Well, with the broken engine and missing both races, we can now forget any hopes for winning the championship. It was nice of Erkka to ask me to race with him and we had lot of fun sharing the car.  I'm really impressed of the learning curve he's shown this year, but it was nearly an impossible challenge for Erkka to jump in without any practice on a difficult track he didn't know at all and in mixed conditions, but he kept it cool and had a clean run without mistakes. I'll miss the next round in Seinäjoki, because I'm busy at Spa 24 Hours that weekend, but I'll be back racing with Petri for the last 2 weekend of the championship. We don't need to count the points anymore, so we'll go full attack for race wins!"