Few days before Christmas I got an exciting package delivered from Belgium. It was a new Bell Helmet HR3 Carbon, with a really good painting job made by Bell Racing Europe and sponsored by hpracing.no. The helmet is made of carbon fiber, and has two spoilers, one in the front and one in the rear. The painting job is magnificent. Probably the nicest painting job I’ve ever had. The helmet is very light, it weights around 1,3kg. And it sits very good and nice on my head. This is a very good helmet, both on quality, and on looks.

Bell Racing Europe had made the decision to sponsor me with this awesome, great quality, good looking helmet. Thank you Bell Racing Europe for this. Thank you hpracing.no for sponsoring my painting job. Thank you both for believing in my potential and for this opportunity. This was the perfect gift for Christmas!

Monza Grand Prix – The best of the year for Pål Varhaug.

The 20 year old, from Ålgård in Norway drove into P10 and P11, and sat the fastest top speed of all on the last race in Monza, Italy. He had the highest top speed along with Filippi, the race winner, 330km/h.
In many ways this became the answer and summary of the 2011 season. We had an P6 in Imola, in the GP2  Asia Series, and a P8 in Spain GP in Barcelona in the GP2 series. Now we finished at Monza in Italy with two good results on one race-weekend, not just one.

- This has been a physical and mentally challenging season to drive in such a professional team with the great championship winner as a teammate, who is now going directly into Formula One. Maybe too challenging, but we can’t afford to choose a less challenging road in this sport. Now finally is the plan for me that I have at least two seasons in GP2, and take the time I need to succed. (Pål Varhaug)
- Everything is in place for me to reach my goals. Everything is there, and I am exactly where I shall be after this first season in GP2. (Pål Varhaug)

It is no easy task to continue in the GP2 championship. More people need to see my potential and be willing to support me on my future in this sport, and have the same belief I have on winning. The difference on my budget and Petter Nortug on skies, is that I drive in the summer and have to find all my financial support by myself. (Pål Varhaug)

My goal is to drive The GP2 Final in Abu Dhabi in November as a pre-start on the next season in 2012. But we don’t have our budget and financial partner ready for this yet. All contracts are ready to be signed if I find a financial partner. My hope is that somebody who is interested call me for a deal soon. (Pål Varhaug)

Nürburgring, also called The Ring, and also called The Green Hell, was filled with crashes and accidents.
The practice started with an accident the first lap in the first corner with a huge flatspot on my front tire, which lead to bad laptimes for the practice. Nürnburgring is a circuit with lots of small downhills that makes it easy to make flatspots. The car wasn’t optimal either. In the qualification, the grip on the track was dramatically changed, and my car got too much understeering. It was then impossible to take a good time in the qualification.

It is three years since I last drove here, so it is difficult to get used to a circuit in only 30 minutes of practice. Nürburgring is also one of the most complex race circuits in the GP2 series.
All this lead to that I got to feel the green hell all over me, and the whole raceweekend became an impossible challenge.

The qualification gave startgrip position P23 to race 1. I got an excellent start, I passed a lot of cars, but in a fight with Gonzales I ended up colliding into Mirocha which ended in the wall.

I had to start from P25 in race 2, and I gained nine places, and finished the race in P16. We chose to drive the whole race on rain tires, because the weather report informed that rain was going to come every minute. Apparently it never came rain, so I would probably have gained more places by changing tires to slicks earlier.

Now, I am in Le Mans preparing for Budapest. Budapest is a beautiful city with a beautiful race circuit. This circuit is a difficult, physical challenging and a very fun circuit. I have won on this circuit before, but I have also had bad weekends here too. This is a circuit where results can change a lot by small things. I’m now trying to forget about Nürburgring, and are concentrating my strength and mind on Budapest. This circuit is awesome, and I hope we can make the best out of it. I hope all my fans who will visit this race

have a great experience of this race weekend;)
Saturday race on Hungaroring is shown directly on Viasat Motor 15.35 o’ clock.
Sunday race on Hungaroring is shown directly on Viasat motor 10.25 o’ clock.

GP2 races is shown all over the world on channels such as:
Eurosport (France and England), TV2 (Denmark), Speed (USA), MTV3 (Finland), Sky (Germany), Rai (Italy), La Sexta (Spain) og ESPN (Asia)

Nürburgring is an amazing race circuit in Germany, that propably is most known for its location and its 21km long circuit Nordschleife which is open for everybody to explore. F1 and GP2 are today raced on a newer and safer GP circuit. Nürburgring is located close up to the Eifel Mountains, which brings out very shifting weather conditions. Like it is possible to meet all four seasons of the year in one evening. The weather is hard to predict, and in most circumstances the results from the races gets different from the expectations. All this makes the races in Nürburgring extra motivating for teams and drivers, and especially the audience.

Pål Varhaug is driving the 6^th round of the GP2 Series on Nürburgring now the July 22^nd -24^th .

- I am looking forward to Germany Grand Prix on Nürburgring. It is always exiting with circuits that brings us new and unexpected challenges. My goal for this round is of course always to win and take points for me and for the team, but it is three years since I raced here last time, we just have to give all and make the best out of it.

You can watch the race live on Viasat Motor, or follow up on www.gp2series.com/Live-Timing and we will update on www.palvarhaug.com . You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The weather in Silverstone was very unstable. So it was a lot of gambling on the weather. I’ve never won the lottery, and I didn’t win the lottery thi

s time either.

In the qualification I didn’t get any flying lap when the track was on the driest point of the qualification. We had to start behind the safety car in race one, which eliminated a lot of the opportunity to advance in the start of the race. I was very quick on rain, and gained many positions in the field on rain. The rain stopped early, but it was very uncertain if more rain should appear. So we waited as long as possible to change over to slicks tires. It never started to rain. So we lost a lot on this gamble. I got P17 in the first race.

In the second race I started with full stop. I made a mistake in the warm-up lap before start, which stopped the engine. I therefore started from pit lane and ended in 23th position after the race.

So in total. Silverstone was an unlucky weekend for me. I was very quick, but very unlucky. But that’s how racing can be sometimes.. I’m preparing for Nürburgring now;)

After a good start and good tactical driving, I made a good P10 in race two. Which I am happy with.

Thanks a lot to the team and everybody who helps and supports me. Thanks to all my fans.

-I’ve been home training, but now I’m looking forward to drive again. My goal is to take points in some of the races this summer, Pål Varhaug says.

Pål is leaving for Le Mans on Monday to test in the DAMS-simulator. He will leave for Valencia on Wednesday.

This years was the first for Pål Varhaug in Monaco, but he has experience from the next race in Valencia June 25th and 26th. Pål drove the GP3 series in Valencia last year, and the track is quite different from Monaco.

In Monaco you drive the streets, but the “street course” in Valencia is in the harbour with big open areas, so the track designers (Tilke) had more freedom to design the track than what they would had at a “proper” street track.

The race in Valencia is June 25th and 26th, som Pål has some time off the next weeks. But it’s hard work with training every day.

Pål will also arrange a karting event at his home track, Klepp, to help youngsters start with karting.