Round 5 of the Drift Masters Gran Prix in Riga will live long in the memory due to its craziness and the many accidents. We are happy that even 17 cars powered by Samsonas Motorsport made it through qualifying into the Top 32 and there were some very interesting names and cars that are rarely seen – Andrius Vasiliauskas brought his new and spectacular BMW G87, Nikolass Bertrans returned to Drift Masters with the BMW E92 Eurofigher built by HGK Racing and Lauri Heinonen got the chance to test Drift Games Toyota Supra because his Nissan 180SX NASCAR engine blew up.
Most of the Top 32 battles were successful for the drifters with Samsonas gearboxes. J. Banet, J. Deane, L. Heinonen, C. Falvey, B. Čirba, J. Shanahan, O. Nilsen, F. Roche, J. Jylha, and K. Piskolty made it into the Top 16. It was an emotional victory for Benediktas Čirba, who had had a difficult season, and he beat the championship leader, Conor Shanahan. Andrius Vasiliauskas had to concede victory to Piotr Wiecek, who later was the winner in Riga.
In the Top 16, local hero Nikolass Bertrans beat Jason Banet, while the Irish duo James Deane and Conor Falvey also progressed to the next round. Then the madness began – Benediktas Čirba won over Kevin Piskolty, who made a spin. A similar spin was committed by Orjen Nilsen, which meant Jack Shanahan progressed and Jarko Jylha also progressed, while Fionn Roche crashed hard into the wall.
The top 8 was followed by even more accidents – Nikolass Bertans progressed to the semi-finals as his opponent Espen Rohde crashed, James Deane won over Conor Falvey, who was stopped by a technical issue and a mistake ended Benediktas Čirba good run, allowing Jack Shanahan to progress to the semi-finals.
The semi-final saw an epic battle between Nikolass Bertrans and James Deane, with the latter going through to the final, while Jack Shanahan lost to Piotr Wiecek. In the final, James Deane had to concede victory to the Pole in another epic battle, while Nikolass Bertrans secured the home podium as Jack Shanahan finished his race into the wall.