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| Race report by Alexander Hagberg |
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| The LRP TCM is an important event every year as it marks the end of the indoor carpet season. It is one of the biggest carpet events in Europe with hundreds of entries. This year, the entry count was somewhat decreased, and the event had moved from the traditional Eppelheim location to a new venue in the small village of Althengstett, outside of Stuttgart, in southern Germany. The track type and level of competition remained the same however. |
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| Once again, we were using the LRP CPX tires for this event. The traction became high but not as high as at ETS or US events. The team had done intense pre-event testing in order to prepare a good starting set-up for these tires. We already had a good basic set-up from previous races, but there is always room for fine tuning. We had a big team present at this event including myself, Martin Hudy, Marek ČernĂ˝, Alessio Menicucci, Francesco Martini, Magnus Vässmar, Niclas Nilsson, as well as our German team, Tim Wahl, Marco Kaufmann, and Tobias Vogel and Valentin Hettrich in the stock category. |
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| We arrived in Althengstett on Friday morning. We saw a very technical and narrow track layout with only two fast corners, coming onto and following the straight. We knew that a lot of low speed steering was going to be required as well as stability in the double chicane sections. As practice progressed, we were improving our pace, step by step, with Tim Wahl in Modified and Marek ČernĂ˝ looking to have the best cars from our team. Practice ended with a small disaster for me as the organizers had decided to, without warning, disallow my time used for re-seeding. The reason was that my car was underweight. I felt that it was a completely unfair treatment as other drivers got away with only a warning. This meant that I was forced to start in the second slowest qualifying heat. As a result of this, I had a lot of traffic to deal with. It was also difficult to uphold a strong pace as I had nobody to fight with in my heat. It was really a strange situation which I have never witnessed at a big event before. |
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| I managed to qualify 5th overall after some very quick and consistent runs, but I still think that I had more potential than that. Tim and Marco were showing very good speed in early qualifying, but faded somewhat towards the latter runs as their cars would not cope so well with the changing track conditions. Nevertheless, they made the A-main without any problems, not a bad result for two up and coming drivers. Magnus was good in early qualifying as well but narrowly missed out on the top 10, by only a second in difference to Juho Levänen on the 10th spot. Martin was also quick, especially at the end of qualifying but made some costly mistakes which put him at the top of the B final field as well. |
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| Marek was very close to TQ in stock class. Unfortunately he was not lucky enough in the last two rounds of qualifiers. He was leading both of them and in but unfortunately he was crashed by slower driver in Q4 and made small mistake in Q5. He was going to have to fight Oliver Franke for the win from the 2nd spot on the grid. Tobias Vogel ran some great qualifiers and qualified on very good 3rd place. |
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| The finals were difficult for us. The track was very narrow and clean overtaking was difficult, if not impossible, unless the driver in front made a mistake. In A1 I suffered from an early mistake. Unfortunately Marco and Tim where involved in a collision which set them both back the order. In A2 we had better luck, I finished 4th, and Tim in 6th. A higher position was possible but did not happen as nobody made a mistake except Eric. As A3 was soon starting, I knew that I had a chance to finish on the podium only if I finished 2nd or better in that last final. I was going for it as Viljami made a mistake in the infield. I was passing him but eventually we came together in the right hand corner following the small carousel, as he held the inside line. It sent my car off the track and I had no more chance to fight for a top finishing position in that final. Overall, it meant that I finished in the same position where I qualified, 5th overall. Marco and Tim finished 8th and 9th respectively after some difficult finals. |
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| About the stock finals, in the second final, Marek could challenge Franke for the lead, but shortly after that, his pinion got loose. Tobias was really unlucky in the finals as the driver who started behind him was not the most fair driver. It was very disappointing to see that he completely destroyed his finals, mainly in the second one where he hit him with full power directly on the start. Valentins car was working also very good but traffic, bad luck, and also some small driving errors cost him the chance to finish in a higher position. |
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| Overall, the results can be considered as a bit disappointing as we had good cars and good chances for top results in both categories. However, in the end, some factors played against us this time. Marek did a great job to finish in the runner up position in the stock class. We had 3 cars in the final in both classes. We have a young and strong team, with lots of potential. Now we must look forward to the upcoming races on asphalt! |
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| Pro Stock class top 10 overall |
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1. Franke Oliver
2. Cerny Marek â“ XRAY T4
3. Kunak Zdenko
4. Vogel Tobias â“ XRAY T4
5. Leinburger Steffen
6. Wohlgemuth Daniel
7. Staab Jan-Philipp
8. Bickendorf Jan
9. Hettrich Valentin â“ XRAY T4
10.Zorn Thorsten
Modified class top 10 overall
1. Völker Ronald
2. SĂĽdhoff Freddy
3. Kutvonen Viljami
4. Stadler Dionys
5. Hagberg Alexander â“ XRAY T4
6. Dankel Eric
7. Krapp Christopher
8. Kaufmann Marco â“ XRAY T4
9. Wahl Tim â“ XRAY T4
10.Levänen Juho
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