Last weekend I was in Luxembourg at the EC-A track of this year to do some testing. It was the 1st Luxembourgs Championship of the year and there were some known drivers from France and Germany as well. 2 times Euro-B champ Richard Volta, XRAY Teammate Tobias Hepp, Arnaud Matthieu also from France, EC-B Champion Christian Wurst and of course the Luxembourgs drivers.
On Saturday they still had to do some work on the track so the track was open for practice around 13:00. The track was very dusty and it took all afternoon to clean the track. Grip got better every hour. I tested some setup changes and the car felt pretty consistent during the whole Saturday. Also I did some clutch tests because the last race I had some minor setup difficulties, but all seemed to work out very well. I aslo did some tests with engines and at the end of the day I was happy with the car/engine combination but I felt that there still was some improvement left.
On Sunday we had great weather even better than Saturday. Because it would be very hot the fastest time could be set in the first heat. My first heat was ok, I had some minor problems overtaking back markers and lost some precious time during overtaking. I had 24 laps in 7:01. And if it wasnâ™t because of the overtaking issues I could have had 25 laps. But after 3 heats no one improved and also I drove 3 very consistent heats: 24 in 7:03 and 24 in 7:03 ;-) So I was on pole followed by Richard Volta.
Qualifying:
1. Ermen John NL XRAY RX8
2. Volta Richard FR
3. Mathieu Arnaud FR 4. Hepp Tobias DE XRAY RX8
5. Rischard Dirk LU
6. Bourgeois Michel BE
7. Wurst Christian DE 8. Maquel Tom LU XRAY RX8
9. Beltrallo Patrick LU
10. Libar Jacques LU
At the start of the final everyone had a clean start and I pulled away from the field and after 30 mins took the win home. Everything went as planned.
Final results:
1. Ermen John XRAY RX8
2. Mathieu Arnaud
3. Maquel Tom
4. Bourgeois Michel 5. Hepp Tobias XRAY RX8
I was happy with the result but felt that the car could do a lot better on this track; I think it has to do with the dusty conditions the track was in. Also my engine was a bit on the rich side but it performed really well during the whole final!
I would like to thank my sponsors: XRAY, R&B, Tornado, Contact Tyres and RC Connect and also my dad for the pitting during this weekend.
