| Race report by Pedro Rombouts |
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Round 2 of the Dutch Nationals 1/10th took place at the fast Mac de Baanbrekers track in Rucphen. With temperatures above 20°C on Saturday, it was a lovely day to find a good set-up and rhythm of the car. The small field was competitive, with lap times very close together.
The forecasts for Sunday were bad, with rain expected all day. Luckily, we only started the day with a wet track, but ended up having a great sunshiny day. Due to the wet track, we all had slow times during qualifying round 1 with times 1 second off the pace. In the second round, we had a dry track, and Team XRAY driver Pedro Rombouts drove the best 3 conservative laps. In round 3, Daan Jacobs topped the best time of Pedro by 0.1sec, putting his new Serpent 747 on pole for the final. Others who made the final directly were Daan Stuiver, Team XRAY Belgian driver Maxim Claes, and upcoming youngsters Mitchell van Es and Maarten Bakx (both piloting XRAY NT1).
Qualifying:
1. Daan Jacobs
2. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
3. Daan Stuiver
4. Maxim Claes - XRAY NT1
5. Mitchell van Es â“ XRAY NT1
6. Maarten Bakx â“ XRAY NT1
The final started off well for pole sitter Daan Jacobs who got away in the first minutes of the race with only Pedro Rombouts approaching his pace in 2nd place. Behind them there was a gap to the rest of the field who were battling for 3rd spot. After Daan Stuiver retired due to an unfortunate crash, Maxim Claes was driving in 3rd spot. At the front of the race it was still Daan Jacobs leading, but with Pedro Rombouts closing in on him.
With different pit stop windows, Pedro took over the lead from Daan after about 12 minutes and was pulling away slightly. After 22 minutes, Maarten Bakx had technical problems and had to retire from his impressive race; up until that moment he was driving in 3rd and was approaching the speed of the front two drivers. From there, Maxim took over 3rd spot again. Up at the front, Pedro never looked back and finished 6 seconds ahead of Daan. Maxim finished in 3rd place, followed closely by the steady-performing Arco de Jong who crossed the finish line only 0.7 seconds behind Maxim. |
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(click to enlarge) |
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| Final: |
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1. Pedro Rombouts â“ XRAY NT1
2. Daan Jacobs
3. Maxim Claes - XRAY NT1
4. Arco de Jong
5. Sander Borghoff
6. Jan Willem Gons â“ XRAY NT1
7. Maarten Bakx â“ XRAY NT1
8. Mitchell van Es â“ XRAY NT1
9. Ruben dâ™Arco â“ XRAY NT1
10. Daan Stuiver
Thanks to XRAY and RC Connect!
Picture by Ricardo Hofmeijer
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