Elias Adestam edges close field for second NXT Gen Cup pole
Elias Adestam came out on top of an ultra-close qualifying battle at Gelleråsen Arena on Friday evening to score his second NXT Gen Cup pole position of the season.
Adestam, who also bagged the historic first-ever NXT Gen Cup pole at the Falkenberg opener earlier this year, held off practice pace-setter Alexzander Kristiansson to top the times by less than a tenth of a second at the end of play.
“I’m P1 and I couldn’t have been happier,” said Adestam. “There was a lot of traffic to manage, but in the end I put in a good lap and that was enough for pole position. I’m really happy with that and I’m already looking ahead to tomorrow.”
For Kristiansson, who topped both of the preceding test sessions earlier in the day, P2 on the grid marks a personal best in the all-electric junior touring car series.
“I’ve been on an upwards trajectory lately, qualifying third at the Nürburgring and second here,” said Kristiansson. “It’s all in the small details and the small steps, but I’m definitely getting more and more confident in the car.”
Enzo Hallman will line up third for the first of Saturday’s two races, lapping just 19 thousandths slower than Kristiansson.
"I'm happy with qualifying,” Hallman commented. “It was very heavy traffic and difficult to find a gap, but in the end I finished P3 which puts us in a good position for tomorrow. It's great to be consistently up there and I think we can fight for it tomorrow."
Rounding out the top five were Jonathan Engström – who like Kristiansson netted a new personal best – and Victor Nielsen. The top quintet, incredibly, were separated by just 0.206 of a second.
Qualifying proved more challenging, however, for title contenders Ellis Spiezia and Linus Granfors. The duo, sitting first and second in the standings respectively, appeared to struggle for pace and could manage no more than seventh and eighth on the timesheets.
“I don’t really know what happened today, but it’s obviously very close. I lost all my time in the final sector, so we need to look at the data to see where to improve. It’s been a disappointing day, but I’m still hopeful for the races,” was Granfors’ reaction.
Behind Granfors – who scored a grand slam last time out in Germany by winning both races at the Nürburgring – Siri Hökfelt sprung one of the surprises of qualifying with a strong run to ninth place. She duly led the female drivers, with Louise Larsson in 15th and Katie Turner taking 17th.
“P9 is a personal best for me in NXT Gen Cup, so of course I’m really pleased,” said Hökfelt. “We had a rough couple of practices, but after checking the data we got a lot better and I improved a lot. I was about six tenths off in the final sector in practice and now I actually had the quickest time of all there, so really happy and looking forward to the races tomorrow.”
The first race of the weekend is scheduled for 10:30 CEST on Saturday morning, with the reverse-grid Race 2 taking place at 15:35. Both races are live-streamed on the official NXT Gen Cup YouTube channel.
Results
Points
Schedule
Saturday August 19th
10:30 – Race 1 (18 min)
15:35 – Race 2 (18 min)
Times in CEST
2023 NXT Gen Cup entry list
Start no. – Name – Nationality
2 – Greaham Hofmans - Netherlands
3 – Linus Granfors – Sweden
4 – Theo Jernberg – Sweden
5 – Sebastian Kinnmark – Sweden
6 – Mikkel Njor – Denmark
7 – Enzo Hallman – Sweden
8 – Elias Adestam – Sweden
9 – Isak Arvidsson – Sweden
11 – Ellis Spiezia – USA
12 – Filip Bartoš – Czechia
14 – Katie Turner – United Kingdom
16 – Månz Thalin – Sweden
19 – Alexander Gustafsson – Sweden
21 – Siri Hökfelt – Sweden
27 – Alexzander Kristiansson – Sweden
47 – Jonathan Engström – Sweden
50 – Victor Nielsen – Denmark
51 – Louise Larsson – Sweden
Regulations – Quick overview
The driver with the most points at the end of the season will be crowned the official Swedish Junior Champion by the Swedish Motorsport Federation.
A total of six race weekends are held in Sweden and Germany.
Each race weekend consists of one practice session, one qualifying session and two races of approx. 15 minutes each with standing start.
The grid for the first race is determined by the result of qualifying.
The grid for the second race is determined by the result of Race 1 with the top eight drivers in reversed order.
Qualifying points are awarded to the top 3 drivers through the following scale: 4, 2, 1
Race points are awarded to the top 16 drivers through the following scale: 30, 25, 21, 17, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
All drivers can utilise the push-to-pass functionality during the races which provides them with a burst of extra power. There is a delay of 5 seconds when activating it, so that driver’s can’t use it in a defensive capacity.
Key links