Hagberg wins second A-Main at ETS
Alexander Hagberg has won the second A-Main at Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Gran Canaria, the Team Xray driver benefiting from a coming together between Top Qualifier Ronald Volker and A1 winner Adrian Berntsen. After the disaster of the first main in which he spun at the start, Volker finished A2 third meaning the end of his challenge for a first win on the island. With second from the leg, Berntsen looks poised to take his first ever ETS win with only team-mate Hagberg in with a chance of denying him in the third A-Main.
A much better start from Volker saw the German lead the field for first half of the 5-minute encounter before a much faster Berntsen made contact with the all white Yokomo. While Berntsen waited on the defending champion to retake the lead, a much improved Hagberg passed them both to take a lead he would not relinquish. Having had a bad opening Main when contact from Naoto Matsukura ended his challenge early in the race, Hagberg said A2 ‘definitely turn out better’. Changing the set-up on his Xray T4, having suffered understeer in A1, he said his car was much better particularly in the second half of the run and admitting he got lucky when the two in front of him came together it puts him in to a good position to fight for the overall win in A3.
In a really strong position to take the win and become only the 10th different winner in the ETS’ 36-race history, Berntsen was quick to express his regret for making contact with Volker. Clearly faster than then the 9-time ETS race winner, the 20-year-old said he trying to make a clean pass but unfortunuately they touched ending Volker’s chance of a first win at the Gran Canaria round. Running used tyres Bernsten said his Xray T4 ’14 was much better and for A3 he will leave it as is focusing instead on just driving his own race and see what comes of it.
‘At least the start was better’ said third placed Volker. The winner of the season opener and current leader of the championship standings, he said he struggled for rear traction and he doesn’t know why as everything was the same as yesterday when he took 4 of the 5 qualifiers. Admitting Bernsten was ‘pretty fast’, he did point blame on the Xray driver for the contact saying it was ‘race incident that can happen when fighting so close’. Despite not being happy with the handling of his LRP powered BD7, Volker still managed the fastest lap of the race but for A3 plans to adapt his tyre prep to give him a car he is more confident with.
Behind the Top 3, Matsukura finished fourth followed by the two Marc’s, Tamiya’s Rheinard claiming a distant 5th from 8th on the grid and Serpent’s Fischer taking 6th after starting at the back of the grid. Having had good luck in A1 finishing 2nd and 3rd, HB’s Andy Moore and Kyosho Christopher Krapp had a tough race finishing 7th and 9th respectively.
In A2 of Xray Pro Stock Jan Ratheisky made a very good pass on team-mate & Top Qualifier Marek Cerny to take the win. With a win each the Xray duo will go head to head in A3 for the win, each driver having one win a piece already this season. In Formula Ratheisky claim his fourth straight win in the class by backing up his A1 win with another win in A2 this time over the Speed Passion chassis of Austria Thomas Pumpler.
Ride Modified A-Main Leg 2 Result
1.(3) Alexander Hagberg – Xray – 16/5:19.759
2.(2) Adrian Berntsen – Xray – 15/5:00.275
3.(1) Ronald Volker – Yokomo – 15/5:01.109
4.(4) Naoto Matukura – Yokomo – 15/5:03.079
5.(8) Marc Rheinard – Tamiya – 15/5:03.744
6.(10)Marc Fischer – Serpent – 15/5:04.293
7.(5) Andy Moore – HB – 15/5:06.344
8.(9) Viktor Wilck – Tamiya – 15/5:07.938
9.(6) Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 15/5:08.799
10.(7)Magnus Vässmar – Xray – 15/5:10.293
Xray Pro Stock A-Main Leg 2 Result
1.(3) Jan Ratheisky – Xray – 15/5:16.377
2.(1) Marek Cerny – Xray – 15/5:16.443
3.(2) Lars Hoppe – ARC – 15/5:19.575
4.(6) Eugenio Antimo Valiente – VBC – 15/5:19.762
5.(5) Toni Mateo – Yokomo – 15/5:21.810
6.(8) Michael Kiesewetter – VBC – 15/5:21.983
7.(7) David Nemcek – Xray – 14/5:02.570
8.(9) Pawel Staszewski – Tamiya – 14/5:03.892
9.(10)Beni Stutz – Tamiya – 14/5:04.030
10.(4)Henrik Heitsch – ARC – 8/2:52.628
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