Sudhoff holds clear practice advantage at ETS Apeldoorn
Freddy Sudhoff holds a clear advantage over his rivals at the penultimate round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series with the Awesomatix driver topping the first controlled practice by a considerable margin from Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and Bruno Coelho. Racking up his first ever ETS career win at the first outdoor race of the season in Madrid but then struggling at the next round in Austria, Sudhoff is back to form making the large fast flowing AMCA Apeldoorn in the Netherlands look easy. Laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps by more than 3/10ths of a second, his rivals are openly finding it hard to match his pace with the bad news being the German is confident the hotter it gets the better his car is going to work. Unlike most races this year, there is no threat of rain interrupting the schedule with tomorrow, the main day of qualifying set to see temperatures sore to the to the mid 30s.
‘From the very first practice it’s being going very good and I really like the track layout’, was how Sudhoff summed up his strong start to the weekend. He continued, ‘I have made some minor tweaks to the car here and there, just some fine tuning really. We have also worked on the speedo settings because how you get out of the corners here is important. We are focus more on that for now’. Having the advantage both over 3-laps and over 5-minutes, asked if the expected hot temperatures was of any concern to him maintaining his advantage, he replied, ‘my electrics are running cool and the hotter it gets the better the cars gets’.
On his CP1 performance Hagberg said, ‘It’s a lot better today, I struggled a bit yesterday because I lacked track time as I didn’t come here for practice this year’. The Swede continued, ‘now the car is more on the pace but it’s a difficult track as it changes a lot with the temperature. We seem to be more competitive the hotter the track is and the weather for tomorrow is very hot so we are hoping that will favour us. Managing the tyre temperature for the 5-minutes in qualifying is going to be important’.
Winner here 12-months ago from the TQ, Coelho said, ‘CP1 was OK. We tried new stuff this round and it was not as good as before so we will try something different for the next one’. The reigning Champion added, ‘Awesomatix are strong here and we are trying to match them. Over 3-laps we look ok but over 5-minutes we drop a lot (to Sudhoff) so we have work to do for qualifying’.
Although pleased to set the fourth fastest time, Nicholas Lee described his performance so far as ‘up & down’. The Yokomo driver said, ‘I didn’t feel good with the car but it’s doing good lap times. Every round we have tried something new on the set-up but for controlled practice I went back to the set-up I was most comfortable with and now I will keep it the same and try to adjust my driving to suit that’. For his Championship points leading team-mate Ronald Volker the first controlled practice left him P8. The German was happy with the pace over the entire run but admitted his 3-lap pace was ‘down the order’ which he added was down to the car pushing too much, something they will try to rectify for CP2.
Setting the 5th fastest time, Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain said, ‘Freddy and I knew since yesterday, actually since testing here, that this track was going to be good for us. It was every element that suits our car’. The French driver continued, ‘Freddy is easily fastest and I can fight for 2nd or 3rd. I can be on par with Bruno/Ronald, who ever it is going to be’. On his car set-up, he said, ‘Freddy came here running my base set-up and tried some adjustments on that so I tried them also but I have ended up going back to my own settings. I don’t need to change anything on the car yet’.
‘Better than the first one’, was Christopher Krapp’s response when asked about CP1, the Yokomo driver suffering a striped gear diff in the first run of the day (Round 7 of free practice). He continued, ‘the track changed a lot between runs so we are still tweaking our set-up. The whole team is a little off the pace and we need something extra’. Asked where they were losing time over the lap, the German said, ‘rotation is the problem. The track has lots of flowing corners and our car is too stable so this is our biggest problem. I will adjust the rear end now to try get more rotation’. Behind Krapp, former Apeldoorn winner Jilles Groskamp was the top Infinity driver ahead of Volker with Loic Jasmin and Viktor Wilck completing the Top 10.
In Pro Stock its was also Awesomatix that led the way as their cars filled the Top 7 positions in CP1. Fresh from being crowned EFRA’s European Pro Stock Champion, Olivier Bultynck was fastest from championship leader Simon Lauter with Max Machler third. In Formula, Serpent’s David Ehrbar was quickest from Bultynck and ETS Spain winner Jitse Miedema.
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