Autosportfoto

Nigel Melker glorious winner of FA1 2014 championship

Due to rain, the FA1 field started behind the safety car for the last race of the season. After two laps, the safety car went in as Dani Clos (ESP) was leading the field.

Within a lap, championship leader Nigel Melker overtook Clos and made his nickname come true: he proved to be the rain man.

With a 38-second advantage, he drove himself to the winning position on TT Circuit Assen in The Netherlands. "Dani Clos made a mistake in the first lap, so I overtook him and drove my own race from there on. The speaker asked me before the race if I still was ‘the rain man' and I'm happy I could prove that I still am," Melker said. Mirko Bortolotti (ITA) became second in the championship, despite being absent from this last round, and the Slovakian Richard Gonda third.

Nigel Melker: "I look back at a nice FA1 championship. The team - Azerti - improved by each race and the car was good and incredibly fast. It was too bad that Bortolotti was not here to battle for the championship, but I am happy to have won both races here in my home country." Since Bortolotti was not here to receive the trophy, his team manager Piercarlo Ghinzani came to the podium. Richard Gonda was third in the last race and on third place for the championship as well. Gonda says: "I didn't expect that the season could be so successful for me. I got from Formula 3 to this championship and this year was just going to be a step forward and to gain some extra experience. It's always positive to reach a good result, so I'm very happy about this. I hope there will be a 2015 championship and I wish all the people at ACCELERATION good luck on preparing it."

FA1 2014 championship positions:
1 Nigel Melker (NLD) 183 points
2 Mirko Bortolloti (ITA) 135 points
3 Richard Gonda (SVK) 94 points
4 Sebastian Balthasar (GER) 76 points
5 Felix Rosenqvist (SWE) 73 points

Results race 1:
1 Nigel Melker (NLD) -- 21 laps --
2 Sergio Campana (ESP) 9.553
3 Richard Gonda (SVK) 10.665
4 Nathanael Berthon (FRA) 11.942
5 Dani Clos (ESP) 12.997

Results race 2:
1 Nigel Melker (NLD) -- 24 laps -
2 Dani Clos (ESP) 38.051
3 Sergio Campana (ESP) 50.111
4 Craig Dolby (GBR) 54.649
5 Nathanael Berthon (FRA) 1:33.986

Other ACCELERATION categories
Of course it was not only the season's finale for the FA1 championship. The MW-V6 Pickup Series was won by Danny van Dongen (NLD), which had a fantastic weekend in on the TT circuit as well. Georgian Davit Kajaia won the Legend SuperCup championship. More results of race and championship standings can be found on www.acceleration14.com/the-netherlands