At the first training, I was so happy as never before with my NT1. I was always fast on this track but Iâ™ve never had a set-up which made me really happy. We had time to test some things on Mattiaâ™s car and also his RX8 was good on this track..
After the first heat, I decided for a softer rear differential. I switched from 80000 to 60000th. The heats went perfect for me with position 1 in front of my teammates Raphi Wicki, Roger Fasler and Nuno Santos.
On Sunday in the semi-finals I had huge luck , as I reached into the A-Main with number 10. Twice engine off and also some issues with the body shell. That was a bit too much.
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Final was here. Starting from 10th place. What to do? The track is wet and many clouds in the sky. My dry and rainy car were ready. One minute before the start I decided on the dry car with wet tires. After 12 minutes of bad condition racing, Monika and Mattia mounted the dry tires. The next 6 minutes was even more difficult with dry tires. But after that I could push harder. LĂĽscher Maurice was in the lead and I had to fight till the end. Monika told me that actually the fuel wouldnâ™t last for 6 minutes at this pace but I gave everything. If I would go out of fuel, I was already in 2nd, because the 3rd was too far. Luckily I didnâ™t go out of fuel and I could win with just 0.711 seconds gap.
Thanks to Monika and Mattia for the fast tire change in the final and the great fuel strategy.
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Final results 1/10:
1. Traugott Schär - XRAY NT1
2. Maurice LĂĽscher - XRAY NT1
3. Michael Schäfer - XRAY NT1
4. Philipp BĂĽhler - XRAY NT1
5. Raphael Wicki - XRAY NT1
6. Patrick Fankhauser - XRAY NT1
7. Jakob BĂĽhler - XRAY NT1
8. Nuno Santos - XRAY NT1
9. Roberto Alessandrelli
10. Theo Giannakos
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3rd Round Swiss Nats â“ 1/8th
Race report by Mattia Pesenti
I arrived at the track Friday morning and the weather forecast wasnâ™t good for the weekend. Luckily during the afternoon we could test many things on the car in order to find a good setup for the qualifiying heats on Saturday.
During the night it rained a lot but the sun came out in the morning and we could do all the heats on dry conditions. After the first 2 heats I was 3rd behind Kurzbuch and Haechler, but the local driver Biernat Christopher was really close. In the 3rd heats I tried a different front tyre and I was really fast, unfortunately I broke the 1st gear after 3minutes. In the last round I had some problem of grip in the rear so unfortunately I finished in 4th spot.
We start the semifinal in dry conditions but rainclouds were coming. I fought with Haechler in the first minutes, then I saw that I had a good gap and I decided to finish the semifinal without risks. The rain came in the last minute but I could finish 2nd behind Silvio.
The second semifinal was on strong wet condition, Luca Martinelli âśThe orange submarineâť won the semifinal and unfortunately Kurzbuch had some issue and didnâ™t pass in the A-Main.
During the lower finals the sun came out and the track dried! I start the final really fast and because of a little crash of Martinelli and Haechler I could take the lead. I stood on the lead for the first 10mins but then Silvio passed me. I was in 2nd position until the tire change. During the tire change my engine stops and I lost some seconds, after that the engine wasnâ™t as good as before and at the next fuel stop Traugott and Martin adjusted it. I tried to push in order to reach the 2nd position but I lost too much time.
Luca Martinelli was in 1st position and Silvio was really fast. Luca won the race with a really small gap, thanks to his perfect strategy. I finished on 3rd position!
Many thanks to Traugott Schär and Martin Wenger for the help during the final!
See you at the ENS in Ettlingen
