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| Race report by Alex Hagberg |
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| Every race of the ETS series is highly competitive these days, as all the top touring car drivers are attending. The fourth round of 2012, held in Poznan, Poland, was no exception. The last race of the series to be held on carpet, also served as an end of a long indoor season. I arrived in Poznan with high expectations, after strong showings at other recent international events. |
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| After a disappointing ETS event in Scandiano, Italy, I had done a lot of testing with the controlled Ride tires in order to be perfectly prepared for this race. I soon found that I did not have to make many changes to my basic carpet set-up which seems to work for most conditions and tires. As I arrived in Poland, I hoped that only minor tweaks to this set-up would be needed to make the car dialed in. |
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| As practice started on Friday, we soon found that the layout was quite difficult and some parts were completely unforgiving with no room for mistakes. The triple chicane in front of the drivers stand was a big matter of discussion as many cars came crashing through it, with many rips in the carpet as a result. For the fourth and final practice round, the organizers decided to change the chicane, where only the first part of it remained. I felt that it was a good change, since it made the track layout slightly faster and it definitely had a better flow to it. |
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| In practice, I found that my car which had the 2mm chassis and topdeck mounted was the faster one. Just like at the recent LRP TCM event in Germany, this car was the best choice. As could be seen from the impressive laptimes of other XRAY drivers, especially Magnus Vässmar and Zdenko Kunak, it was clear that we had a very good car at this race. I only found a decent pace in the last practice round, as I was struggling a big with a too aggressive speedo setting in the earlier rounds, making the car difficult to drive. For saturday morning, I definitely had found a better setting as the car felt more "normal" again. It could also be seen from the laptimes, as from Q2 and onwards, I was a challenger for the TQ in every run. |
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| Qualifying was very close, and even though I scored 3 x 2nd place finishes in the 5 rounds of qualifying, I had to settle for 3rd overall, since Freddy Südhoff had beaten my in Q3 by just two tenths of a second, which gave him the upper hand in regards of points, and thus he would start behind TQ man Ronald Völker, who again showed a dominant qualifying performance. In Q4 and Q5 I did come very close however, within one second of his pace, and even setting the quicker single laptime of 12.6 in the very last qualifier. The only set-up changes I did in qualifying was to adjust the shims in the upper rollcenter, and to remove a 0.5mm washer from the ackerman bridge. Both changes made the car faster and easier to drive. Working closely together with other drivers, Magnus, Martin and Zdenko, we shared information which allowed us all to find a good set-up well suited to our respective driving styles. Usually myself and Magnus end up very close with our set-ups. |
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| For the finals, I expected a difficult time from starting 3rd on the grid. In front was Freddy, which had showed a lack of pace in the last two qualifiers, and behind was Marc Rheinard, who is always strong in finals. Magnus started from 5th, tied on points with Rheinard. Zdenko was 9th, and the big surprise was young German driver Marco Kaufmann who put in some solid qualifiers to put him in his first big A-main! At the top of the B-final, we saw some other XRAY drivers such as Tim Wahl, Martin Hudy and Niclas Nilsson whom all had the pace to challenge for the A-final spots. |
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| In A1, I was able to pass Freddy already in the second lap. The car was good from the start but became quite edgy towards the end, which resulted in a traction roll in the bottom right corner, which allowed Marc to pass. Ronald drove a perfect race and was already a couple of seconds in front. |
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| A2 was a completely different story. Already in the first corner, Freddy ran wide which allowed me to pass him on the inside. A perfect start for me as I immediately could start to chase down Ronald. He did show a very quick pace once again as he pulled away slightly. After about one minute he did make a mistake and hit a curb which put his car up against the barrier in the middle. I went into the lead, closely followed by Marc. Marc tried to pass me on the inside in the same corner where Ronald made the mistake earlier, only for him to traction roll directly after that. I was challenged by both Freddy and Ronald for the lead towards the end of the run, but managed to keep it together to take the win. The final became further more eventful as the huge amount of spectators around the track started to come onto the drivers stand as the final went on. A really distracting moment was when a spectator had managed to stand in between myself and Ronald. I had no choice but to try and focus on the race. In the end, I was really angry with this inconvenience and apparent error by the organizer, but still relieved that I managed to run such a great final. |
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| As I had the same problem in both A1 and A2 with the handling changing a lot over the 5 minutes, I discussed with my teammate David Ehrbar about this problem. We both agreed on that it was probably the gluing of the front sidewall that was coming apart during the run, making the handling inconsistent. We decided to remove the glue altogether with sandpaper, and add a new, thin layer. This small change actually transformed the car for the last and deciding final as it now stayed consitent over 5 minutes. Thank you David for your valuable help! |
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| A3 was coming up and I knew that I would probably only have a chance to win if Ronald made a mistake, as his pace was very fast in the two preceding finals. The tone went off and so did we as we all followed each other from a great, clean start. After a few laps, Freddy traction rolled his car in the same bottom right corner where I went off in A1. It was apparent that Ronald was struggling a bit in A3 as his pace was clearly slower than before. After driving patiently behind him with a perfect handling car, I eventually got the chance to make a pass in the infield. A clean pass put me in the lead and I did not look back. I won A3 and the overall win with it. The car was perfect in the end, and I feel both proud and happy to achieve such a result. Hard work pays off. |
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| It was equally impressive to watch Zdenko win the stock class in some really close finals. XRAY not only won their first ETS win in the Modified class, but their first double win! It doesn't get any better than this. We are a really strong team at the moment. Congratulations to all A-finalists from our team; 4 in Modified and 2 in Pro Stock. |
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| Modified |
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1. Alexander Hagberg (SE) â“ Xray T3â 12
2. Ronald Völker (DE)
3. Marc Rheinard (DE)
4. Freddy SĂĽdhoff (DE)
5. Viktor Wilck (SE)
6. Zdenko Kunák (SK) â“ Xray T3â 12
7. Magnus Vässmar (SE) â“ Xray T3â 12
8. Christopher Krapp (DE)
9. Andy Moore (GB)
10.Marco Kaufmann (DE) â“ Xray T3â 12
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| Stock |
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1. Zdenko Kunák (SK) â“ Xray T3â 12
2. Oliver Franke (DE)
3. Steffen Leinburger (DE)
4. Martin Hofer (DE)
5. Tony Streit (DE) â“ Xray T3â 12
6. Ivan Laptev (RU)
7. Michal Orlowski (PL)
8. Marek Cerny (CZ)
9. Denis Zuykov (RU)
10.Rob Janssen (NL) |
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