What a final it was!
After six weekends with three hard-fought heats each weekend, Kevin Suenson finally stood on top of the podium in the 2022 edition of Aquila Formula 1000! This year’s Rookie was Christian Lovén after an intense fight all year with Viktor Karlsson!
So it was finally time for the Final 2022. The entrance to the weekend was that Kevin Suenson (450p) had a clear advantage over Andreas Skatteboe (386p) in 2nd place and a wildly chasing Joel Granfors (377p) in 3rd. Joel then with a competition less run than the others.
But since you race for 100 points every weekend, anything could really happen. One small error and the fight would quickly even out!
In the Rookie Cup, Christian Lovén (296p) led ahead of Viktor Karlsson (265p), Alexia Danielsson (196p) and Oscar Mellstig (140p). So a lead of 31 points for Christian Lovén. A difference that could quickly be eaten if something happened. And since all the heats were run in one day, there wasn’t much margin for error!
As usual, there were three extremely close heats where a top quartet consisting of Joel Granfors, Kevin Suenson, Andreas Skatteboe and last year’s champion Linus Granfors in the first two heats pulled away from the others and made up for it. The pace was crazy high and it basically required a track record to win, something that Joel Granfors also delivered in heat 1. The new track record is 58.749! But to get an idea of how even it actually was, it should be mentioned that Andreas Skatteboe was driving at the same time at 58.765, i.e. only 16 hundredths slower!!
The longer the weekend went on, the better the speed of the group just behind the top and in the third heat they were not far behind. That group consisted of Christian Lovén, Viktor Karlsson and the West coast knight, always as fast Robin Hafström. But the longer the weekend went by, the faster it went even for series rookies Dante Johansson, Felix Rohlin and Mattias Andersson. In heat 3, Dante actually managed to squeeze 5th place!
Even the “old men” Joakim Granfors and Leo Åberg wanted to join in and chop and Joakim was actually down to 59.254 in heat 2 and Leo only another tenth behind. That said, a crazy high pace was required during the weekend’s races if you were to be in the fight for the top spots!
By the way, Mattias Andersson is a new, pleasant acquaintance for the series. Mattias is an old ”racing fox” with lots of victories and car building under his belt, who has now dived in and started driving Aquila Formula 1000. According to Mattias, what made him interested in the class was precisely the close racing and the training and development opportunities that are offered even for a little older drivers. Welcome Matthias!
Another driver who is also worth mentioning is new Jonathan Öhlander who this weekend drove a full seven (7!) seconds faster than the last time he drove at Kinnekulle. That’s development!
Kevin Suenson wins Aquila Formula 1000 2022 ahead of Joel Granfors and Andreas Skatteboe!
Well, how did it go then?
In fact, the favorites held up to the pressure. Despite a spin in heat 2, Kevin Suenson kept Andreas Skatteboe and Joel Granfors behind him and was able to win in the end with a comfortable 58 points.
However, Andreas Skatteboe had to hand over second place overall to Joel Granfors, who maxed out the weekend in terms of points and took the maximum 100 points! What a guy!
Joel Granfors wins the Prize money checks for both Pole and Total for the weekend. Kevin Suenson comes in second and Joels brother Linus Granfors was third!
In the Rookie Cup the same happened. Both Christian Lovén and Viktor Karlsson succeeded with one spin in each heat, but in the end Christian, as best 5th during the weekend, won two more points than Viktor (best 6th during the weekend) and thus also the desirable Rookie – title! Rookie-third for the year was young Alexia Danielsson who went from strength to strength during the season!
The Rookie Cup 2022: Christian Lovén ahead of Viktor Karlsson and Alexia Danielsson!
If you only look at the Final Weekend’s Rookie results, Dante Johansson took 3rd place behind Christian Lovén and Viktor Karlsson after a clearly solid effort! Should be exciting to follow Dante’s development going forward!
Results for the Rookie Cup in the Final: Christian Lovén ahead of Viktor Karlsson and Dante Johansson in 3rd place.
In addition, Christian was able to collect a slightly unexpected prize during the weekend as Kevin Suenson, who won the overall series and thus also the F4 test, handed this prize to Christian Lovén instead!
Kevin’s justification was that he is actually too old to continue in the Formula classes and he instead wants to join and support the young people in their ambitions. A very nice gesture by Kevin and another Congratulations to Christian Lovén!
In Sportsman, the lightning fast Joakim Granfors was able to comfortably take home the victory ahead of the constant 2nd Michael Karpers and the Rookie Thomas Glaad in 3rd place.
Sportsman 2022: Joakim Granfors wins before Michael Karpers and Thomas Glaad (here represented by Joakim Öhlander)!
One thing worth noticing after this final is that next year probably will be even more even at the top. Then the drivers that are now just behind will have closed the distance to the top and we will have top fights with 7-8 cars involved. Crazy!
My guess is that the 2023 season will be absolutely epic from a racing perspective!
