In the opening round of the Champ Car Atlantic championship Junior Strous has clinched a sixth place. source: juniorstrous.com The Dutchman, who started the race from a fifteenth position, fought out several interesting duels during the race, eventually leading him to sixth overall. In the championship standings the rookie is in sixth place with 19 points. In the 'Rookie of the Year' standings the Condor Motorsports driver is in fourth place with the same amount of points. Junior Strous came to the 3.862 meter long street circuit in Las Vegas (USA) with a lot of confidence. On Friday he set the eighth time during the free practice session, a 1:35.950. In the first qualifying session on Friday afternoon he tried to improve that time but only a few laps into the session the rear stabiliser of his car broke. The team could not repair the stabiliser in time so Strous had to continue with the problem. He ended the qualifying in thirteenth position, not able to improve his lap time. After the qualifying session Strous took part in the second free practice session. He had a good start but eventually had to be content with tenth place. In the final qualifying session Strous did not have luck on his side. The thirty minutes of qualifying were interrupted by red flags no less than four times. The 20-year old driver was not able to put in a really fast lap time. Strous ended the session in fifteenth place, stopping the clocks on 1:32.615. In the warm-up before the race Strous did set the fastest lap, but this time was taken away from him because the race officials declared it was set when the red flags were already out. Strous ended the warm-up in eleventh spot. On Sunday afternoon Strous had a good start of his Champ Car Atlantic race. He immediately won a position and was in fourteenth place. Because 'blocking' is not allowed in America, as opposed to Europe, Strous was able to get to the front of the pack quite rapidly. The race was characterized by many crashes which meant more time was spent behind the safety car than on a 'green' track during the 50 minutes the race lasted. Strous was able to stay out of trouble and ended the nerve wrecking race after 22 laps in sixth place.
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