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Race Report by Thomas GĂĽnsel
Last weekend the third qualification round took place at the MRSC Amberg. The weather forecast looked really good and so a lot of drivers attended this race.

The race started with a half day of practice in groups, and then four qualification rounds. In the beginning I had a bit of trouble with my engines which is why I struggled the whole day until the last qualification round where I decide to change the tank; it turns out that was the solution for all the problems as I had damaged the tank by a hard crash at the last race. In the last round my NT1 was performing very well and I finished the last round of the day in 4th place.

On Sunday morning, the conditions where perfect and everything was well prepared. The evening before I built a new diff with 150000cst oil, and I wanted to test in the first round. The car was oversteering a lot at corner entry so I lost a lot of time in this round and decide to change the entire setup for the last round. I changed everything – shocks, camber link, caster and roll center positions. Now the car was nearly perfect — only a little bit less rear traction in the last 2 minutes — and I had a clean run until the last round where I hit a curb and slid off the track and lost a lot of time.

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After the qualification we had we had the following results:

1. Robert Pietsch
2. Christoph Pietsch
3. Mirco Thalheimer
4. Michael Heinrich XRAY NT1
5. Thomas GĂĽnsel XRAY NT1

6. Sabrina Lechner
7. Christina Wimberger
8. Steve Baumgarten
9. Partick Nähr XRAY NT1
10. Marc Pearson

Now I prepared the car for the semi-final and decided to change the tire brand for the finals because I hoped to get a more consistent performance. During the warm-up time the car now felt perfect and the after a clean start everything worked really well and I finished one lap ahead of the other racers. Unfortunately no other XRAY driver bumped up into the final but we had a very well-performing Michael Heinrich and myself.

The final started under very hot conditions and my car worked perfect again. Unfortunately I hit my teammate Michael in the first round and my car was sitting on the roof for nearly one lap. After that I tried everything to close the gap to the leaders. At the 15min mark I was back in 5th place. At 5 minutes before the end I was in 3rd place with the 2nd place driver only 3 seconds ahead of me. I caught and passed Christoph at the 2min mark. Sabrina had a really clean race and finished 7 seconds ahead of me, with Christoph behind me by 3 seconds.

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The final started under very hot conditions and my car worked perfect again. Unfortunately I hit my teammate Michael in the first round and my car was sitting on the roof for nearly one lap. After that I tried everything to close the gap to the leaders. At the 15min mark I was back in 5th place. At 5 minutes before the end I was in 3rd place with the 2nd place driver only 3 seconds ahead of me. I caught and passed Christoph at the 2min mark. Sabrina had a really clean race and finished 7 seconds ahead of me, with Christoph behind me by 3 seconds.

The car was perfect over the entire final and my fastest laptime was 0.2sec ahead of the other drivers.

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Final results:

1. Sabrina Lechner
2. Thomas GĂĽnsel XRAY NT1
3. Christoph Pietsch
4. Steve Baumgarten
5. Mirco Thalheimer
6. Michael Heinrich XRAY NT1
7. Nobuhiro Kanabe
8. Dominic Greiner
9. Christion Wimberger
10. Robert Pietsch


The next round will be held in three weeks at the MCC TĂĽrkheim track where the German Nationals will take place in September.

Thanks to XRAY, HUDY and SMI for the support.