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| The Euros Warm up was held on May 18-20 in the small city Montbrison not far from Lyon. Team XRAY was as usual participating in this event and was represented by Jilles Groskamp, Teemu Leino, Martin and Juraj Hudy, Bart Wuben, Giuseppe de Liguori, together with French team drivers Cyril N`Diaye, Mathias Rascol and many local drivers. Almost all local club drivers were using XRAY cars so the race was totally dominated by the T2'007 EU edition. The race was split up into to four days with free practice on Thursday, followed by organized practice on Friday and qualifiers and finals on Saturday and Sunday. |
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| Free practice started on Thursday; however, it was raining almost the entire day so the team had not many opportunities to drive. Finally in the late afternoon the track became dry and drivers had 3-4 chances to drive. Although the track did not look difficult, after first practice the drivers agreed that the track was more difficult than it looked because the traction was very high and the car was pushing a lot and therefore the track became more difficult. Organized practice was held on Friday but there was rain again in the morning so drivers had no chance to practice in the morning. The rain stopped around 11:00AM and the track became dry around noontime so all drivers were ready to drive and test as much as possible. However, at this time the organizers completely failed in organizing of the race because they did not allow anyone to race and the drivers had to wait another 1.5 hours because of the lunch break. All drivers were extremely upset because the track was finally dry and they had to wait because of lunch break. |
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| Finally, practice started and drivers had 6 rounds of timed practice. Almost all the teams and drivers had problems with pushing of their cars, Team XRAY included. However, all drivers were working very hard on solving this problem and finally at the end of the day had a very good starting set-up. Drivers firstly changed shocks springs from soft to harder springs in order to make the car more stable and also more aggressive. Some drivers still did not have enough steering so they moved up shocks on the shock towers and moved the servo Ackermann position more forward which gives less Ackermann and better steering into the corner. After the timed practice it was Cyril who was in the lead ahead of local French drivers with XRAY cars who were incredibly fast and driving without any mistakes. Jilles and Teemu were fast as well, but Martin was not as fast because his car was still pushing a lot which meant that he could not put down as much power in the corners as others and this caused his time losses. |
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Qualifiers started on Saturday morning on a cold track which was super fast. The temperature was increasing very quickly run-by-run which lead to slower times and nobody was able to drive as fast laps as in the morning. This lead to the second minor problem of the race because organizers followed new EFRA rules which say that two best times out of six are counted together and these times make the final result. Therefore drivers that made a very good result were drivers that were fast in the first and last qualifiers. Drivers who made a mistake in these rounds had no chance to make A main. Jilles was the exception because he lost his pinion in the first round but although he was in top 3 positions in the rest of the rounds he finished in overall 8th position because all the drivers ahead of him made good results in the first round. Martin was very unlucky because his car was pushing in the first round so he did not make a good result and in the last round when he was on a very good pace he lost the screw from the C hub so he finished in the B main. On the other hand Teemu was super fast and with the very good result in the last round he set TQ ahead of local French drivers.
1:10 Euro Touring Championship Warm-up Qualifying Result
1. Teemu LEINO XRAY T2'007
2. Loic JASMIN
3. Aurélien THREHOUT XRAY T2'007
4. Jérémy LIMOGES XRAY T2'007
5. Hugo RAGAUT XRAY T2'007
6. Cyril N'DIAYE XRAY T2'007
7. Benoit LABBEZ XRAY T2'007
8. Jilles GROSKAMP XRAY T2'007
9. Bart WUBBEN XRAY T2'007
10. RĂ©my COUVREUR |
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Teemu was unbeatable in the Sunday's finals and won all three rounds. He showed not only the car's performance but also his driving skills especially in the first final when he tried a not-so-good additive and was sliding around the track for the first 3 laps; however, he did not give anyone a chance to pass him and after few laps he was able to pull away. Jilles showed his enormous talent as well and he finished in overall 2nd position from his 8th qualifier post. Bart was lucky in the finals as well and finished 3rd from his 9th place and showed that he is the driver that would join the top drivers very soon.
1:10 Euro Touring Championship Warm-up Final Result
1. Teemu LEINO XRAY T2'007
2. Jilles GROSKAMP XRAY T2'007
3. Bart WUBBEN XRAY T2'007
4. Loic JASMIN
5. Aurélien THREHOUT XRAY T2'007
6. Hugo RAGAUT XRAY T2'007
7. Cyril N'DIAYE XRAY T2'007
8. RĂ©my COUVREUR
9. Jérémy LIMOGES XRAY T2'007
10. Benoit LABBEZ XRAY T2'007 |
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| In conclusion, although some drivers were not very lucky, Team XRAY showed once again its cars' performance with total domination of the T2'007EU cars in the final with 8 cars being XRAY cars. Plus, Teemu and Jilles were really fast and they both had very good chances to make good results in the Euros together with many French drivers who were super fast. |
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