Volker wins A2 from Sobue
After the dramas of A1 Ronald Volker took an easy win in the second A-Main at ETS Austria, the Yokomo driver heading home the Tamiya of A1 winner Akio Sobue by 2.4 seconds as Bruno Coelho retired early after putting his Xray in the boards of the temporary track. Alexander Hagberg would complete the Top 3, the Xray driver struggling as the track had even less traction than A1 when he finished a close second to Sobue.
‘A2 was a different, much better story for me and I was able to run a clean safe race’, that was how Volker summed up the second of the three A-Mains. With the result putting the Top Qualifier in a strong position to wrap up his 12th ETS win on the difficult to overtake track, the German said conditions were tricky second time round as overall traction was lower. The problem was also compounded by a number of damp spots that had developed as drops of water from the outside found their way through the roof joints of the massive marquee the track is housed in. Volker said he had to adjust his line to a tighter one at the end of the straight and at the middle hairpin to avoid getting his tyres wet. After 3-minutes Sobue lost pace and he was able to cruise to the finish adding he hopes for a ‘repeat clean race for the next one’.
Sobue, who at worst will claim his first ETS podium in a top 2 position, said he struggled with no traction at the start after hitting a damp spot. While the tyres came back after a number of laps and he was able to match Volker on pace, his fastest lap slightly faster, he said he couldn’t make up the time lost as his tyres were done. Unfortunately with new tyres a big disadvantage in the low traction conditions, the track having had high bit last year, the Japanese driver said he has no choice but to continue with the same tyres forA3.
Hagberg said it was ‘a shame that we have to race in these conditions and the outside rain is affecting the race’, the Swede’s comments in reference to the damp patches. Although he would record the fastest lap of the race he described his ORCA powered T4 as ‘worse than A1’ as he struggled to keep up with the leaders and was just trying to maintain his position for the 5-minutes in the end finishing 9/10th of a second ahead of Yannic Prumper. The 2-time ETS race winner said he had no choice than to change his set-up for the closing race of the event if he is to stand a chance of keeping up. Team-mate Coelho said his T4 had no traction and as a result he lost the rear end. With the car crashing heavily into the track’s wooden boards the impact would break the right steering hub forcing instant reirement after just 2-laps.
In the Xray Pro-Stock class Lars Hoppe became the first crowned winner of the Mattsee event as he backed up his A1 result with another convincing win over Mike Gosvig and Jan Ratheisky. Hoppe’s second win of Season #8 of the ETS, the result together with the bonus point for the overall TQ puts the ARC driver right into contention for the title especially given that defending champion Marek Cerny is struggling this weekend. Having last year been a strong race contender in Luxembourg, venue for the next round of the championship, the German says he is already looking forward to the event which takes place at the end of this month. In Formula things looked like going the way of Ratheisky until ETS Italy winner David Erhbar pulled off a great move on the final round down the straight to get is Serpent passed the Xray and forced the the decider to go to A3.
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