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| Race report by Tony Streit |
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| After controlled practice on Thursday and a good feeling with my car, the important timed practice started on Friday morning. In the first two runs with old tires from the races in Gran Canaria and Apeldoorn, the car feels great and I was able to set the best times. I was looking forward to the last practice runs, which were important for the grid in the qualification group. But I had problems to use new tires due to much traffic and last but not least, I had a hard crash at the end of the straight therefore my car was quite damaged. In the ranking after practice, I was in 11th position, so I could drive at the top of the second best pro stock group. |
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After working on my car to suppress the tweak after my crash, my car was absolutely perfect in Q1, so I set the best time with a little gap ahead of my followers. My decision to reduce the downstops in the front from 5.8 to 6.2 and in the rear from 5 to 5.2 was the best I could do. I also increased the camber to 2° in both front and rear.
I also had good runs in Q2 and Q3, so I was in the leader after Q3. In the important last run I set the best time again with a perfect run. I was really happy with my T3´12, the car worked really perfectly, was easy to drive so I could push every lap for constant fast times. And also the nice winding track suited my driving style. |
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So I was TQ and I hoped to take the final win of the ETS series 2012.
Top 10 after qualification:
1. Tony Streit XRAY T3'12
2. Oliver Franke
3. Martin Hofer
4. Morten Iversen
5. Marek Cerny
6. Phiipp Neudinger
7. Zdenko Kunak XRAY T3'12
8. Dominic Vogel
9. Bernhard Bopp
10. Ivan Laptev
For the final day, the weather forecast was hotter than on Saturday. I was pleased with it because my car works really well in hot conditions.
I had a perfect start in the first A-main. After a collision with Oliver Franke, I had a couple of perfect laps, so my gap became bigger and bigger to Hofer, who started from grid 3. Finally I won this A-Main with a great gap of nearly 2 seconds ahead of Hofer. |
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In the second A-Main, Franke was my closest follower, and in one of the last laps, he hit me in the chicane, so Martin Hofer won and I finished 3rd. But his time was quite slower than my time in the first run because of the hotter temperature.
So the last A-Main would determine the victor, and maybe the championship. Because Zdenko had problems throughout the weekend he had to achieve 7th position in case of a Franke victory. And so far he had two bad A-mains after crashes with competitors. I had a great start again, Franke and I made a gap to the followers, which became larger and larger. We had exactly the same speed throughout the run, so he put pressure on me for the first 4 minutes. I feared that the same thing would happen as in the second A-main, that my time from the first run was not possible to beat due to the higher temperature and used tires. Therefore I let Franke pass and I tried to attack him. We had a great battle to the finish line, he won and I finished 2nd.
With the best time from my first winning A-main it was enough to take the victory. |
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Top 10 after the race:
1. Tony Streit XRAY T3'12
2. Oliver Franke
3. Martin Hofer
4. Phiipp Neudinger
5. Dominic Vogel
6. Ivan Laptev
7. Bernhard Bopp
8. Zdenko Kunak XRAY T3'12
9. Marek Cerny
10. Morten Iversen
Zdenko finished 8th, and luckily it was enough to win the ETS championship. Oliver Franke, Zdenko and I had the same points, but Zdenko had 2 race wins. This shows just how close it is at the top of this highly-competitive ETS series. So Iâ™m pleased with the overall 2nd place. |
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| Final Overall Standings: |
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1. Kunák Zdenko - 612pts XRAY T3'12
2. Streit Tony - 612pts XRAY T3'12
3. Franke Oliver - 612pts
4. Hofer Martin - 608pts
5. Cerny Marek - 600pts
6. Laptev Ivan - 599pts
7. Orlowski Michal - 590pts
8. Wiessmann Felix - 582pts
9. Bucher Fabian - 576pts XRAY T3'12
10.Mateo Toni - 558pts
Finally I have to say thank you to Team XRAY. At every race the teamwork is really impressive, and we always have a lot of fun. So Iâ™m looking forward to the next season. |
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