Unlucky De Ridder rakes up yet another 'Slowbergine'

PHOTO CREDIT: GC Kompetition

GCK Academy's Guillaume De Ridder rakes up another 'Slowbergine' in Norway.

The 'Slowbergine' - an Aubergine sticker is awarded to GCK's slowest driver across all free practice sessions. The Aubergine sticker will be attached to the driver's car for the remainder of the season.

De Ridder arrived in Norway with three 'Slowbergines' on his Renault Clio R.S. RX Supercar.

Could the unlucky Belgian turn his luck around in Norway? Unfortunately not! In Qualifying 1, De Ridder opted for an early joker lap, but it ended in disaster as Baumanis clipped the front of Timmy Hansen sending him flying sideways into the joker lap and hitting the side of the Belgian's Clio R.S. RX.

"The weekends follow each other at the moment in that they seem to look alike, unfortunately," he said.  "It was a tough weekend again with tough luck, for example in Q1 we had a great start and were ahead of the others and then got smashed into from behind, so ended up with a DNF."

Things turned around in Qualifying 2 when De Ridder finished in second place in race one but would be classified in sixteenth overnight. 

"Q2 showed some good lap times which is really promising, so I was hoping for a good 2nd day," De Ridder said.

In his Qualifying 3 race, the Belgian finished third but maintained sixteenth overall. 

The final qualifier in Norway saw Guillaume sandwiched between Oliver Bennett and Jani Paasonen in race 1. The Belgian managed to avoid contact and opted for a first lap joker, where he spun out coming to a stop. He was able to restart and crossed the line in third.

"We lost time due to a bad start in Q3 and then had technical issues in Q4," he adds.

"It’s a big shame and I hope that Sweden is able to turn my luck around."

TEXT - Junaid Samodien