Markus Palttala shines out as the trendsetters of the first hours Markus Palttala is one of the drivers we missed this year in the Belcar. This Finnish trendsetter is concentrating on a foreign programme and as such could not be present for a full Belcar season. Having spent a few months in Finland Palttala is now back. The Flying Finn immediately put his seal on the 29th edition of the 24 Hours of Zolder. During his stint he even climbed up into second place, a great performance from the G-Force Racing driver.
"I merely wanted to follow the rhythm of Soulet and Bouvy, but when Soulet went passed Bouvy, I decided to put on even more pressure. The intention was to follow the cars in a snake like manner, but then the G&A Mosler came and upset everything. They were already one lap down, and yet they still blocked us. I did spot a small hole to get passed the car ahead, and was able to climb up in the ranking", Palttala recalls his first few laps.
"I was asked not to go under the 1:39". But on our dashboard there isn't a stopwatch, so I couldn't really see how fast I was lapping. I asked the team whether my rhythm was OK, and I was given the green light by the team manager. And during all this I was saving the car. High gears, no kerbstones, etc. Initially I was worried about the durability of our Cup-tyres, but they remained very constant. Apparently I did quite a good job?! In fact at one moment I was in second place I heard after my stint."
 "The only thing that goes against us is the smaller fuel tank. We are driving with 90 litres, whereas the others have 100 litres. In the long run it does make a difference over long distances. We presently have one pit stop more the others, but this is due to the fact that we couldn't fill up enough during the initial fuel stop. A problem with our system meant that we only managed to fill the tank with 27 litres, which meant that I had to reduce the second part of my stint."
When will we see the blond Finn behind the wheel again? "Roughly at 22.00 or 23.00hr... depending on team strategy. It could be that Val drives a double stint. We're all going to try to drive double stints during the night, but that will depend upon how the race evolves. We have now dropped a few laps, but that's not too serious. The real difference will happen during the night. We'll see where we stand tomorrow at dawn", Palttala winks.
Foto\'s: Marnik Mouchaers & Martijn Wouters
 VZW 24u.be - Gordon McKay on Saturday 8 September 2007 at 20:59. | 
