TQ in Slovakia gives Coelho ETS title No.4
Bruno Coelho has taken the overall TQ at ETS Slovakia and with it his fourth consecutive Euro Touring Series title. Only Yokomo’s Ronald Volker could mathematical end the Xray driver’s reign over the Championship but he needed to go into the Season #12 Finale A-Mains as the Top Qualifier. With Coelho taking the first two qualifiers, Q3 was a decisive run for both drivers but again it was the final lap that would be Volker’s undoing as he again handed it Coelho. While Coelho will aim to cap of his successful title campaign with his 5th consecutive win at the Hudy Arena, Volker will try to hold on to his 2nd place from Alexander Hagberg and Lucas Urbain who go into the fourth & final qualifier with the advantage of still having a new set of tyres.
Reacting to what is his 4th TQ of the Season, Coelho said, ‘for sure that was a like a final qualifier and the pressure was on but at the end everything was OK. Not only did we get the overall TQ but also Championship. I’m very happy for this’. He continued, ‘our (himself & Ronald) pace is exactly the same and it has been all about small mistakes today. One more time there was nothing between us at the end’. Still focused on the job in hand for the weekend rather than celebrating his title win, the World Champion said, ‘I’m still not happy with the car so we will try something different for the final qualifier. Even though we will be in used tyres we see can we learn anything from it for the finals’.
‘The same story as Q2, this time I blew it going into the last lap. I went sideways and that basically was it’, was how Volker summed up the penultimate qualifier. As in the previous round, the German led Coelho on pace on the second last lap on this time he dropped 3/10ths with the error. Despite setting the fastest lap, he said, ‘losing all qualifiers to Bruno when we had the same tyre strategy means I need to make sure Alex and Lucas cant jump me on the grid’. He concluded ‘the late timing of the last one should mean my used tyre disadvantage is less’.
Posting the third fastest time of Q3, Hagberg said, ‘I was too slow to fight for the TQ. The first two were a little faster’. The Swede continued, ‘I have new tyres for the last qualifier so I hope I can take advantage of that and TQ to get 2nd on the grid’. Asked where he felt Coelho & Volker were getting their edge from, he replied, ‘my car is too lazy in the chicane. I need to make t more reactive. We will try to improve that for the last qualifier’.
Again managing the 4th fastest time, this time ahead of Loic Jasmin and Marco Kaufmann, Christopher Krapp said, ‘It was pretty the same story as before, I was just too slow’. Having change the flex set-up on his Yokomo, he said, ‘it was a little better but not what I needed. The car drive too easy but that’s not fast’. Looking to give himself a fight chance of a podium, he said, ‘I will change the rear end of his car and run a different, lighter, ARS system for Q4’.
Also securing the TQ in Q3 with the perfect hat trick of fastest time was reigning Formula Champion Jan Ratheisky. The Xray driver was over 2-second quicker than Infinity’s Jitse Miedema while title main rival David Ehrbar ended up with P5 for the round. In Pro Stock, Max Mächler became the classes third different driver top the times. The Awesomatix team manager TQ’d the round from Frederik Mikkelsen and Kevin Nielsen, with Q2 pace setter Dominic Vogl out this one as Q1 winner Simon Lauter ended up outside the Top 10.
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