Welcome

During this season I'm competing in the Formula Two Championship series. The series consists of 8 race events, of which all are held in Europe. The class is the second highest in Europe, just below Formula 1. There will be always news available after every race event. The races are broadcasted by Eurosport channels and streamed live in internet through www.formulatwo.com.

Henri

Henri Karjalainen put in a strong showing at Brno last weekend (19/20/21 June), with his best F2 performance so far coming in race one.

The Finnish driver set the third fastest lap in the opening qualifying session in the Czech Republic, giving him a great chance of his first points finish of the season. "I will get more confidence in the car when I have these kind of results," said Henri. "I was very happy with the position, particularly as my best qualifying in Valencia was 19th. Coming into Brno I knew I had to concentrate more on qualifying and post good laps, and I am very happy that it worked."

Karjalainen was then involved in a tense scrap for third position with Philipp Eng in the race. With Henri in fourth during the closing stages, he chased down his rival, but Eng held on by just 0.283s. "It is always good to be in the top five," commented the 23-year-old. "I was happy to take fourth, but at the same time I was also a little disappointed that we couldn't get the podium. It was a really close race with Philipp Eng at the end. I tried to overtake him, but it didn't quite work - he defended well."

Unfortunately Karjalainen was caught up in the multi-car accident on the opening lap of race two, and dropped a lap down. He returned to the circuit however, to show top six pace in the closing laps. "I was very pleased with my speed, particularly during qualifying because this will be very important for the rest of the season," concluded Karjalainen. "I also showed that I was not only quick in the wet, but also in the dry. Again, this could be vital in the coming rounds." With rounds five and six of the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship taking place at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend (26/27/28 June) - a venue renowned for changing weather conditions - Karjalainen will be one to watch in the Ardennes.

Source: www.formulatwo.com

10.6.09 Season opener well without problems

In the beginning of the first event I was a bit concerned about the technical problems we had in the official tests. Because of them, and there were quite a few of those, we missed almost the whole other test day. Fortunately no technical failures appeared this weekend. I hope that we went through the whole season's problems already in the official pre-season tests.

The track was new to me, but not too difficult to learn. We had a good pace in the practices and going to the qualifying I was confident. In the qualifying sessions it was a surprise to us that the qualifying tyres worked quite differently than the ones used in practices. After one or two laps the grip dropped dramatically. I didn't warm the very soft tyres well and maybe therefore didn't get the best out of them.

In the first round I started from 21st place. My start was a success and after the first lap I had already overtaken few cars. My lap times were in the same level than the drivers in the top ten. I would have been able to rise even higher than my eventual 17th place, had I known that there were eight Turbo boosts to use in both of the rounds. I had the incorrect information that there were total of eight boosts for the whole weekend. So I used only four of my available eight in the first round.

The second round went like the first one, but this time I used all my boosts. Starting now from 19th position I again had a good start. I catched up and overtook some drivers in front of me and crossed the finish line on 15th place. I'm satisfied on my speed especially in the first round. With that speed I would have easily competed for points in the top ten.

The next race event will be in Brno, Czech. We'll concentrate on getting a better qualifying results and aim to the top in the races. The track also is a bit familiar to me, because I have competed there in the Formula BMW series five years ago.

Henri

26.5.09 Henri has been preparing for the Formula Two season by competing in the Finnish Formula Renault series

The F2-series opener is just around the corner and the three official test days for preparing have been used. 
In addition, to get a better touch for the beginning season, I participated in two race events in the Finnish Formula Renault 2.0 series. That was a good decision both for me and the Red Step Formula team. I needed to get a few races before the season starts, while it had been a long time since my last race in USA.
I competed in four race starts winning two and finishing once on the second place. I'm satisfied with the results and looking forward for the weekend and my first Formula Two race.

Henri

Pictures from F2-tests and Formula Renault-races

Finnish driver Henri Karjalainen has become the latest name to sign up for the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship as he bids to follow in fellow countryman Keke Rosberg’s tracks from F2 into Formula One. 

22-year-old Henri has already experienced success in three continents having raced in Europe, Asia and North America during the last four years. He joins Formula Two after finishing runner-up in the 2007 Formula 3 Asia Pacific Championship, taking five wins and five podiums from the 13 races he contested, before progressing into the Formula Atlantic Championship for 2008. 

"Formula Two is a fantastic opporunity for me," Henri declared, "and I'm delighted to have signed up to compete in 2009. F2 has a great history, and now the 2009 championship has the backing of the FIA, so it has real pedigree. For me F2 represents the best chance to progress into Formula One, which has always been my ambition. Keke Rosberg graduated from Formula Two into F1, and I will be trying my utmost to follow in his tracks."

Karjalainen has also competed in GP2, having been invited to replace fellow Finn Markus Niemelä for the Turkish round of the 2007 championship following a string of impressive results in the 2006 Asian Formula Renault Challenge. Henri scored one victory and three podiums for the Asia Racing Team, whilst he also competed in five Formula 3 Asia races during the same season.  

“The championship itself is a great package," enthused Henri. "Not only is it much cheaper than other series, but the prize of a test drive with Williams is a huge draw and I think that has been reflected in how strong a driver line up F2 has. Of course I’m looking to win races, but the Williams test is a huge incentive and I’m sure everyone will be pushing hard. It’s going to be really exciting, especially as the cars are all equal and so it will all come down to the drivers.” 

Jonathan Palmer, Chief Executive of championship organiser MotorSport Vision, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Henri to Formula Two. I had the privilege of racing against Keke Rosberg – who became the first Finn to reach Formula One – in the mid-1980s, and he was sensationally fast. It would be fantastic if Henri could emulate Keke’s success and progress from Formula Two into F1; certainly he faces some extremely tough competition, but Henri is one of Finland’s outstanding young drivers and we’re delighted to have him in F2.”

www.formulatwo.com

17.8.2008 Henri gets his career best result in Atlantic Championship at Trois-Rivieres

Finnish rookie Henri Karjalainen picked up the first top-10 result of his Atlantic career with a 10th-place performance in the No. 2 GNLD machine for Montreal's Jensen MotorSport. Previously, Karjalainen's best result was 11th in the second race of the Edmonton doubleheader.

www.champcar-atlantic.com

Pictures from the event

28.7.2008 Karjalainen has Strong Run at Edmonton Indy

Henri Karjalainen enjoyed a strong weekend at the Edmonton Indy race on the weekend of July 24-26, driving the #2 LTC Rakennus Team Jensen entry in the Atlantic Championship series.

First year driver Karjalainen is facing a steep learning curve this year, competing on circuits for the first time against a field of drivers primarily comprised of veterans of the Atlantic championship. Consistently making up the gap, Karjalainen finished a strong 11th place in the final race of the Edmonton Indy event, just missing a top 10 finish.

Team engineer Adam Marchitto states, "The Atlantic championship is very tough. Most of the drivers this season are veterans of this series, so not only do they have more experience with the cars, the other drivers also have experience on each of the circuits that we visit. We are excited by the prospects for Henri to challenge well inside the top 10 though for the rest of the season, as his race pace in the final race at Edmonton was consistently among the top 5 drivers. If we had a mid race caution flag, I am sure that's where we would have finished."

The Edmonton Indy also was significant as it was the first appearance of the Atlantic Championship series in support of the unified INDYCAR SERIES. Team owner Eric Jensen noted, "Things feel very similar to the CART series days in the late 90's; with the same teams and level of professionalism. This certainly bodes well for a strong future for American open-wheel racing."

Driver Karjalainen and Jensen MotorSport would also like to thank the 11 sponsor guests who made the trek all the way from Helsinki Finland to Edmonton to support Henri at this race.

With a short break, the Jensen MotorSport team returns to action on the weekend of August 8-10 at the Road America circuit in Wisconsin for rounds #6 and #7 of the Atlantic championship.

www.jensenmotorsport.com

Pictures from the event

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