The first race of this season in South of Germany was held last weekend at the beutiful track NĂĽrnberger Bahn. Team XRAY was well represented with German drivers: Bertram Kessler, Michael Heinrich, Robert Pietsch, Dirk Wischnewski, Thomas GĂĽnsel, and Sebastian Feller.
Thomas and Sebastien had already arrived at the track on Friday to practice. On Friday, Thomas drove a lap time of 13.8, which was 0.6 second faster than the best laptime a year ago. Sebastian Feller had received his car only one week before this race, so he used Thomasâ™ set-up and made laptimes of over 14 second, which was still an improvement compared to last year.
(click to enlarge)
On Saturday, the rest of XRAY Team arrived and Bertram decided that the young talent from NĂĽrnberg â“ Sebastian Eder â“ should drive the new XRAY NT1. In the first rounds, Sebastian already made better laptimes as with his previous car. The rest of the team had good laptimes so all 6 cars were in the top 10.
XRAY tent (click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
Qualification was exciting and at the end four XRAY NT1 cars were in the first 4 places so they clearly showed the super performance of the XRAY NT1 car. Sebastian Eder was 10th and Sebastian Feller with servo problems was in 13th so both had to drive in the half-final. Unfortunately, Sebastianâ™s engine stopped during the race, resulting in a crash and thus eliminating his chances of driving in the half final. Sebastian Feller clearly showed the performance of the car by taking 2nd place behind profi driver Christoph Pietch, so in the final 10 drivers, a whole 5 had XRAY NT1 cars.
Qualification: 1. Thomas GĂĽnsel XRAY NT1
2. Robert Pietsch XRAY NT1
3. Dirk Wischnewski XRAY NT1
4. Michael Heinrich XRAY NT1
5. Christoph Pietsch
6. Gunther MĂĽrdter
7. Dirk Stammler
8. Mirco Thalheimer
9. Mark Pearson 10. Sebastian Eder XRAY NT1
... 13. Sebastian Feller XRAY NT1
NT1 double podium finish (click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
In the final, top qualifier (TQ) Thomas GĂĽnsel had engine problems which resulted in engine stoppage. However, Robert Pietsch and Dirk Wischnewski had a good race and ended up taking the top two places. Behind them was a big battle for 3rd between Michael Heinrich und Christoph Pietsch which ended better for Christoph. Behind these drivers came Dirk Stammler and XRAY driver Sebastian Feller, who would have finished in a better position if his engine had not been too rich.
Final results: 1. Robert Pietsch XRAY NT1
2. Dirk Wischnewski XRAY NT1
3. Christoph Pietsch 4. Michael Heinrich XRAY NT1
5. Dirk Stammler 6. Sebastian Feller XRAY NT1
7. Klaus Lechner
8. Manuel Dietrich 9. Thomas GĂĽnsel XRAY NT1
10. Mark Pearson
XRAY Team Germany (click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
Thomas GĂĽnsel set a new track record with 13.41 seconds. All XRAY team drivers except Robert Pietsch (who drove with a Novarossi Team engine) used MH-Rex LR3 engines which gave very good performance every time. The next race will be in 3 weeks in TĂĽrkheim and we are already excited of the anticipated continuing domination of the XRAY NT1. Check out all the results here at http://www.macn.de/frame.htm
A big thank goes to Bertram for the car which I received luckily before the NĂĽrnberg race, to MH for the engine, and to XRAY for the super car.
