Hagberg & Viljami end season with 2nd podium
With new champion Bruno Coelho already wrapping up the win in A2, the final A-Main encounter of the 2015/16 Yokomo Euro Touring Series Season at the Hudy Arena would see Alexander Hagberg and Viljami Kutvonen cap of their seasons with a second podium finish. Leading away the field in A3, former race winner Hagberg would take a straight forward win to secure his first asphalt podium finish having last finished on the podium indoors at Round 2 in Germany. Having only secured his first ETS podium finish at Round 4 in Italy, Viljami was made to work a little harder for 3rd overall in Slovakia with Ronald Volker shadowing his every move before an attempted pass by Luxembourg race winner Jilles Groskamp tapped both drivers into a spin. This left Viljami to take an easy second with Yannic Prümper completing the Top 3 – a position that was to secure the VBC Racing driver 4th overall, his best result of the season. An intense battle for 4th in the leg would see Marc Rheinard punt Volker into the grass coming out of the second last corner. Crossing the line-up fourth as Volker’s Yokomo sat on the grass, the Taimya driver was later given a time penalty to put him behind Volker who was classified 8th.
‘It’s good to end the season with a podium finish’, was Hagberg’s reaction after the race. The Swede added, ‘doing well this weekend is a good feeling going into the Worlds’. On his A3 win which made it a 1-2 for race hosts Xray, he said, ‘It was alright, car was more stable that time. I was able to control (the) race just like I planned’.
A driver who made a noticeable improvement this season as he stepped up to the role of lead driver at Awesomatix, establishing himself as a consistent front runner, Viljami was ‘super happy to end championship with a podium’. The Finn continued, ‘overall it’s been a super season as I made the A-Main 5-times and had 2 podium finishes on asphalt. I’m super happy’. Struggling in A2, for A3 he said his LRP powered A800 ‘was good again’ adding his previous issues were as he suspected due to a bad set of tyres. After he ‘almost spun coming on the straight’, he said this allowed Volker and Jilles Groskamp to get close but once Volker tried a pass and failed it was ‘then easy’ to finish second.
With the Pro Stock and Formula Round 6 winners being decided in A3, it would be Tom Krägefski who would claim his first ETS win ahead of Xray team-mate and new champion Jan Ratheisky. Starting from the TQ, Krägefski would get passed for the A3 win by P2 qualifier Noah Asendorf who would win the leg to complete an all Xray podium line-up at their home track.
In the Serpent Formula class, Roche driver & A2 winner Olivier Bultynck put in a sterling effort to be the first driver to beat back to back champion Ratheisky this year but it wasn’t to be as having looked to have got to the front himself and Ratheisky touched allowing David Ehrbar to go to front with 2-laps to go. With second in A3 enough for Ratheisky to claim his 5th win of the season in as many race, Bultynck would get second overall while Ehrbar completed the podium.
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