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| Race report by Alexander Hagberg |
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| The fourth round of the Euro Touring Series was held in the small Austrian village of Mattsee. Just like last year, the organizer had built a small temporary track, using boards. At the beginning of the event, we struggled with very low traction levels. Eventually the surface was sprayed with sugar water, which helped increase the grip a bit. |
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In free practice, it was Bruno Coehlo that topped the time sheets in front of me. We had quite quickly came up to speed with a good basic setup. It was a good start to the event. In the stock class, the usual XRAY top team drivers, Mike Gosvig, Jan Ratheisky and Marek Cerny were on pace with their XRAY T4'15 cars.
Qualifyings were extremely close on this small and low grip track. In the end, Bruno Coelho managed to qualify 2nd overall after 1 TQ run. I was in 4th, after narrowly missing out on the TQ in two rounds. My car was really good at the end of qualifying, as the grip came up, so I felt confident for the finals. We had step by step improved our setup with small changes. Our team once again showed their strength as a true team with true team work. Marco Kaufmann was in top shape, to qualify 6th overall with his XRAY T4'15. Congratulations Marco for being back in the ETS A-main again!
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The finals proved eventful as always. Bruno was clearly faster than the TQ man Ronald, but eventually following a few incidents, involving Ronald in A1, Bruno couldn't finish up front. The bad luck continued for Bruno in A2 as his car got sideways and he broke the car as a result going through the middle chicane. In A3 he once again showed his quick pace to fight for the lead, but two mistakes set him back to 4th.
I had a good start to my finals with 2nd place in A1, fighting for the win with Akio. I thought my car was still very competitive in A1, but in A2 & 3 I was struggling with overall traction (just like most of the field) which meant that I had to back off a bit and defend my 3rd overall position. The low traction levels, as well as the usual tire problems, were frustrating matters for many competitors.
In the end I was fairly satisfied with 3rd place overall. Its always nice to be on the podium,and also important points for the overall ETS championships. However, to make passes on this track was extremely difficult, so 3rd was a realistic result considering my 4th starting position on the grid.
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| In the stock class, Mike Gosvig with his XRAY T4'15 was the closest challenger to the dominating winner Lars Hoppe. It was great to see Mike take a convincing runner-up position, in front of team mate Jan Ratheisky. Unfortunately for our team driver Marek Cerny, two DNF's in qualifying, as well as a food poisoning problem on Sunday, prevented him from having a higher finishing result. |
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The increasingly popular Formula category was won by the "king of Formula", our team driver Jan Ratheisky. Jacques Libar also put in an impressive performance to drive his XRAY X1 to a podium position in 3rd. Mike Gosvig came close to the podium as well in 4th. In overall, XRAY had 6 cars in the top 10 which is good for a fairly new car like the X1.
I want to send out a big thank you to all XRAY drivers that participated at the ETS in Mattsee! Looking forward to seeing you all at the remaining ETS events!
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| Modified result: |
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1. Ronald Völker
2. Akio Sobue
3. Alexander Hagberg - XRAY T4'15
4. Yannic PrĂĽmper
5. Marc Fischer
6. Viktor Wilck
7. Marco Kaufmann - XRAY T4'15
8. Bruno Coelho - XRAY T4'15
9. Marc Rheinard
10. Michal Orlowski
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| Stock result: |
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1. Lars Hoppe
2. Mike Gosvig - XRAY T4'15
3. Jan Ratheisky - XRAY T4'15
4. Martin Hofer
5. Christian Donath
6. Julian Borowski
7. Nico Catelani
8. Markus Kreder
9. Henrik Heitsch
10. Marek Cerny - XRAY T4'15
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| Formula result: |
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1. Jan Ratheisky - XRAY X1
2. David Ehrbar
3. Jacques Libar - XRAY X1
4. Mike Gosvig - XRAY X1
5. Michele Romagnoli
6. Simone Leonardi - XRAY X1
7. Christian Driessle
8. Herbert Weber
9. Jan Bohlen - XRAY X1
10. Matteo Berlincioni - XRAY X1
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