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| Race report by Alex Hagberg |
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| The third round of the very popular ETS series was held for the first time on the Spanish island Gran Canaria. The mediterranean climate of the island allowed for outdoor asphalt racing in the wintertime which is rather nice. The race was held at a big electric asphalt track in the small village of Telde on the eastern part of the island. The controlled tire had changed from the 36 compound used last year, to the softer 32 compound, still manufactured by RIDE. The race saw some 120 entries divided on three different classes. |
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| In order to be perfectly prepared for this race, and with no previous asphalt testing in 2012, I arrived very early for this race, already on Monday in the same week. Also present for practice from this time on was the current ETS series leader and dominant Ronald Völker who was already practicing hard from the early days. The first two days of open practice was difficult since tracton levels were rather low as a result of not so many people had yet showed up. Basically the traction would increase a bit each time out, so feeling was more important than laptimes at this point. I was testing two different cars with different set-ups, back to back, in order to find the best set-up for all conditions. In the end I settled for the new optional 2mm chassis in combination with the standard 2mm kit topdeck. This gave the best combination of traction and on-power steering which was very important on this track. |
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| As controlled practice started on Friday it was soon evident that tire strategies would play a major role in the outcome of the race. As new tires were significantly faster, especially in the hotter conditions of the afternoon, drivers would have to decide very cleverly when to use their second set of tires for qualifying. In practice I was constantly within the top 4, but as always it was difficult to determine who was really on the pace as the pace was only judged from the 3 fastest consecutive laps. I was still feeling confident for the coming qualifiers on Saturday. |
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| After a few practice rounds on Friday evening I decided to fine tune my set-up with two last set-up changes for the qualifiers. The first change was to add offset to the front wheel axles, +0.75mm each side, which just made the car drive more nice and round in the low speed corners. The second change was to increase the shims for the bumpsteer under the steering blocks, from 1mm to 2mm. This just made the car steer a lot more, especially on the second run on the tires, which was very important. |
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| In qualifying I soon found that I had a very good car on 2nd run tires compared to the competition. In Q2 when nobody ran new tires, I was able to TQ this round with over one second. In the last qualifier, where C. Krapp was on new, I was still able to keep up with him and almost beat him even though he had the advantage of new tires. In the end it was clear that the strategy of Krapp was the best as he decided to run on new tires in Q1 and Q5, where the track temperature was the coolest and a quicker time was possible. As we were tied on points with two TQ rounds each, he would be awarded the overall TQ with two faster times over 5 minutes. Unfortunately I made a small mistake in Q1 on the second lap which made me loose valuable time and a possible TQ time. In the end I was fairly happy with 2nd on the grid as I knew my car was working well and most importantly I was starting in front of Völker and Rheinard, who are always strong challengers for the win. |
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A1 and A2 finals where both very close affairs, with the top 3-4 runners finishing only within 1-2 seconds. In these finals I was struggling for overall traction as my car would slide around a lot compared to qualifying. I was not able to defend my position very well and would finish 3rd and 4th respectively in those finals. For the last final, which would decide the remaining podium positions, I decided to use my last set of tires from qualifying, as this would also be run for the 3rd time, as would have been with my final set which was given to me on Sunday. Actually I almost did not make the start of A3 as Marc Rheinard would hit my car at full speed from behind on his warm-up lap. The hit was so hard that the servo came off. Thankfully, the organizer gave me the time I needed to repair the car.
After about 15 minutes in the pits, with the help of teammate David Ehrbar, we were feeling confident that my car had been restored to its original shape. To my great relief, the car felt okay from the warm-up lap as the final was about to start again after the delay. The car felt a lot better in the last final, actually it felt more close to its performance from Saturday. It had good traction again and I was able to take a fairly easy win in A3 which would award me the runner up spot. Not a bad result in the end considering the asphalt races in 2011 was always a struggle and this year I feel very strong on asphalt with the 2012 car already.
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| In the Pro Stock class, the XRAY honours were held high by German team driver Tony Streit, who with two second places in qualifying only would end up 6th on the grid. He did a great job working his way up to 4th overall in the finals in the very close Pro Stock class. |
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| Ride Modified Overall Result |
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1. Christopher Krapp (DE)
2. Alexander Hagberg (SE) â“ Xray T3â 12
3. Marc Rheinard (DE)
4. Viktor Wilck (SE)
5. Andy Moore (GB)
6. Eric Dankel (DE)
7. Chris Grainger (GB)
8. Elliott Harper (GB)
9. Steen Graversen (DK)
10.Ronald Völker (DE) |
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| Xray Pro-Stock Overall Result |
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1. Marek CernĂ˝ (CZ)
2. Martin Hofer (DE)
3. Ivan Laptev (RU)
4. Tony Streit (DE) â“ Xray T3â 12
5. Michal Orlowski (PL)
6. Alvaro Fernandez (ES)
7. Javier Martinez (GC)
8. Carsten Madsen (DK)
9. Felix Wiessmann (DE)
10.Toni Mateo (ES) |
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