Euro Touring Series

February 10, 2019

Chassis Focus – Jan Ratheisky

Chassis – Xray X1 2019
Motor – Scorpion Power System (Handout)
ESC – Scorpion Power System (Handout)
Batteries – Sunpadow 4500mAh
Tires – Volante (Handout)
Radio/Servo – KO Propo/Savox Signature Edition
Bodyshell – Xray Worlds Edition

Remarks – Top Qualifier and winner of A1 here in Daun, Jan is running a host of soon to be released optional parts on his X1. The rear wing of the car is now mounted to the chassis plate which gives ‘way more traction’ as the wing stays flat with the chassis. Also new is the rear battery/wing holder which is stiffer. Also at the rear of the car there is a self made aluminium stiffener mounted across the rear of the pod but Jan explained that the final Xray version will be made from carbon fibre. The chassis is also a soon to be released optional featuring more holes so a longer wheel base set-up can be used. Pointing out he is running a standard wheel base there is also a matching top deck for the longer wheel base set-up.

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February 10, 2019

Video – A-mains Leg 1

February 10, 2019

Coelho sees off Sudhoff challenge to take A1

Bruno Coelho has won the opening A-Main at Round 2 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Germany. The Xray driver saw off the challenge of Freddy Sudhoff, the Awesomatix driver mounting intense pressure on the Top Qualifier in the early part of the race. While Coelho would eke out a small gap towards the end of the race, Sudhoff was never more than 6/10ths behind. While the Top 2 pulled clear of the 11 car field, Mugen’s Viljami Kutvonen secured the bump up from the B-Main, it was to be Ronald Volker who completed the Top 3. An early mistake from Alexander Hagberg promoted the Yokomo driver to third which he would maintain until the finish. Running fifth for most of the race behind Yannic Prumper following his roll, Hagberg would come together with Marc Rheinard in the final sprint to the loop and drop to 9th, Rheinard finishing 10th.

Commenting on A1, Coelho said, ‘It was a great final. I had Freddy all the time on my back’. Chasing a repeat of his 2018 Daun victory after a difficult start to Season #12 only netted him a 6th place in Vienna, he continued, ‘at the beginning he made a lot of pressure on me but at the end I was able to get a little space to breath. I am happy with my race, I had no mistakes and I will try to make the same the next one’.

Sudhoff joked, ‘same story different day’, having finished 3 of the 4 qualifier second just tenths off the Xrays of either Coelho or Hagberg. In the hunt for his first ever ETS win, the German said, ‘I pushed 110% at the beginning. Bruno and I pulled clear of the others and I could risk more. Even if I hit a dot I would still be second. It was super intense and I was always with 5 to 6/10ths of him’. Looking to A2 he said, ‘I will try to attack again, especially at the beginning when my car seems to better than his’.

Coming into the weekend as the championship points leader having ended a victory drought at the season opener back in October, Volker was pleased to kick off the final day of the weekend with a Top 3 in A1. Having struggled in practice but recovered to claim the self titled ‘best of the rest’ in qualifying with P4 on the grid he said, ‘Hagberg went off pretty slow and then rolled in front of me which handed me third but that was the best my car has been all weekend. I am now not loosing as much time to Freddy and Bruno’. The ETS’ most crowned Modified champion, added, ‘trying to fight for the podium is now the goal and I hope this is possible’. On his improvement in pace, the German said, ‘We made a big change on the set-up of the suspension. We’ll try something smaller for A2’.

In the first Pro Stock A-Main, there would be four different leaders. Top Qualifier Max Machler looked to take early control of the race but having established a gap over the battle for second he made a mistake allowing Leo Arnold to take over the lead. The Frenchman lead for 8 laps but like Machler with a comfortable advantage made an error and dropping right to the back of the field. From 5th on the grid it as Frederik Mikkelsen who became the third different leader but the Danish driver had Simon Lauter all over his rear bumper. Winner of the opening round of the season in Austria, Lauter made a great pass at the end of the straight driving around the outside of Mikkelsen who a little early on the brakes for the 180 corner. Holding position to the finish behind Machler salvaged a third place from the race. In the other two touring car classes, the 40+ Masters class saw a dominant A1 win for Top Qualifier Alexander Stocker who finished more than 8-seconds ahead of Andreas Weyhoven and Christian Drießle. In 17.5 Stock, Alexander Müller took advantage of a lap 2 mistake by Top Qualifier Torsten Baggendorf to take the win in front of Karsten Bartsch and B-Main bump up Thomas Bemmerl.

The Formula class brought a win for reigning champion Jan Ratheisky who was kept on his toes for the 5-minutes by Round 1 winner David Ehrbar. The Serpent driver came close but just couldn’t quite make a move on the Xray, crossing the line 2/10ths behind Ratheisky. Starting 8th on the driver the Xray of René Kölbel would get third benefiting from a clash between former champion Herbert Weber and Olivier Bultynck.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

February 9, 2019

Coelho on pole at ETS Daun

Bruno Coelho will start tomorrow’s A-Main at ETS Daun on pole position, the Xray driver seeing off a valiant effort from Freddy Sudhoff in the fourth & final qualifier. An exciting qualifying at Round 2 of the championship would set-up a three way fight to be Top Qualifier in Germany, Coelho taking Q1, Alexander Hagberg Q2 and Sudhoff Q3. While a mistake early on put Hagberg out of contention, Sudhoff was more than up for the fight for his first ETS TQ pushing Coelho hard for the first half of the 5-minutes with the Awesomatix driver top of the timing screens. Coelho, however, drove a more consistent second half of the heat and it was enough to give him TQ run no.2 of the weekend by 3/10ths of a second and with it his first TQ bonus point of Season #12, the Portuguese driver having picked up 5 of them on his way to last season’s title. Getting a P5 in Q4, Hagberg’s TQ run and 3rd in Q3 will put his Xray third with the honour of best of the rest going to championship points leader Ronald Volker who got fourth after the tie breaker with Yannic Prumper.

‘It was a very tight qualifying with no room for mistakes’, was how Coelho described the TQ decider. The World Champion continued, ‘Freddy was super fast at the beginning and we fight a lot but towards the end he lost some pace so I could drive more careful and not super close to the dots’. Asked about tomorrow’s finals, the winner of last year’s Daun encounter said, ‘It will be very difficult. All three of us have the same pace. Starting at the front I have to make no mistake and take no risk. I have to be careful with my braking, they can brake later than me’. Having constantly changed his car every run, on his set-up for the final he said, ‘We have 2 cars in the Top 3 so the car works well but we are missing 1%. For sure the car was better in Q4 than before but its not 100% so we will continue to change some details’.

‘Almost TQ’, conceded Sudhoff. The World Championship finalist added, ‘it was just a 3/10ths margin to Bruno. It was a super nice fight with him. Some laps I was quicker, some laps he was quicker but I am super happy to start on the front row’. Putting in one of his most impressive ETS performance’s to date, the German said, ‘the car been working super good and been on point all weekend. Overtaking is going to be hard because the track has a good flow but there are many hairpins which present the chance to brake down the inside’.

Hagberg was clearly annoyed he threw away the chance to fight for the overall TQ. A multiple ETS race winner, he said, ‘I made a mistake early on and lost my rhythm and I couldn’t recover’. Asked about the finals, he replied, ‘I will try my best to fight for the win. Anything can happen so we’ll see’.

‘I won the battle of Best of the Rest’, was Volker’s reaction to his fourth place on the grid. Having taken the TQ and victory at the season opener in Vienna, the Yokomo driver has struggled to match the pace of the Top 3. On Q4, he said, ‘I knew I had to finish close to Yannic (Prumper) to secure 4th on the grid and at least this worked out’. Having changed his set-up for the final round, the former World Champion added, ‘it wasn’t any improvement at the beginning of the run so I changed to a more aggressive driving style to keep up. We are still not where we want to be so will have to do more changes to for A1’. He concluded, ‘I hope something happens in front otherwise it’s going to be hard to challenge them for a podium’.

Qualifying best of the Infinity drivers, Marc Rheinard securing 8th and new signing Viktor Wilck set to debut from 9th, Prumper said, ‘Unfortunately Ronald had a faster 3rd place and I will start 5th. I am slightly faster than him but he starts in front of me’. Struggling with his car in 180 corners, the track layout featuring many of them, he said, ‘It is still pushing and I know now what else to change anymore so I will keep it the same as it is for the finals and try to get the best result I can’.

While Sudhoff was denied his first TQ in Modified, in Pro Stock his mechanic Max Machler delivered the Russian designed car a pole position. Having topped Q3, the popular German repeated the form in the deciding final qualifying to become Top Qualifier ahead of Léo Arnold, the Xray driver making a mistake that dashed his chance of an overall TQ. Defending champion Jan Ratheisky will start 3rd with ETS Vienna winner Simon Lauter lining up fourth. In the new 17.5 Stock class, Alexander Müller took the final qualifier but with a faster TQ time it will be Torsten Baggendorf who starts on pole, while championship leader Daniel Pöhlmann lines up third.

In Formula, Jan Ratheisky capped off qualifying with a third TQ to put his Xray on pole. Behind the reigning champion, the Serpent of former champion David Ehrbar will take up second on the grid with the Roche of Olivier Bultynck third. Inaugural Formula Champion Herbert Weber starts 4th. With Alexander Stocker wrapped up the overall TQ after the third round of qualifying, the order behind him in the Masters 40+ class was decided in Q4 as Andreas Weyhoven 2nd, Christian Drießle 3rd and the defending champion Thomas Oehler fourth.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

February 9, 2019

Chassis Focus – Freddy Sudhoff

Chassis – Awesomatix A800X Evo (MMCX-A)
Motor – Hobbywing G3 5.0T
ESC – Hobbywing Prototype
Batteries – Team Silverback 5500 Spiral-G
Tires – Volante (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/MKS HBL SL575
Bodyshell – Protoform Type S

Remarks – Very much on form here at ETS Round 2, Awesomatix’s Freddy Südhoff is running the latest version of the Russian designed car including the MMCX-A conversion set. His mechanic and Awesomatix Team Manager Max Mächler prepared the car with the newly released BW22 Battery Holders for the use of ultra LCG Batteries. The wiring on the car is credit to Max’s attention to detail on the car. Other optionals on the car include the long suspension arms, and Awesomatix Aluminium Screws on the topside of the car to lower the centre of gravity. Freddy is running a 5.0T motor on the large indoor Daun track combined with a Prototype stage ESC from Hobbywing (blurred out in Chassis Focus photos as requested by Hobbywing).

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February 9, 2019

Sudhoff hits the top in Q3

Freddy Sudhoff finally delivered on the TQ potential he showed but was denied in the opening two qualifiers, when the Awesomatix driver became the third different driver to top the qualifying times at Round 2 of the Euro Touring Series in Germany. Sudhoff was again the only one to take the challenge to the Xray team, this time however he only had to contend with Bruno Coelho as Alexander Hagberg didn’t have the pace that saw him take Q2. Unfortunately for Coelho having successfully found a way by traffic the same car would run into the back of him in one of the track’s many 180 degree corners costing the Q1 pace setter almost a second and allowing Sudhoff some breathing room to bring home the TQ run. Despite a second incident of his own doing on the final lap in which he rolled his car, Coelho would get a second for the round albeit over 2-seconds off Sudhoff. Hagberg would get a P3 from the round with Yannic Prumper backing up the first run of the day as best of the rest to post another P4 ahead of former World Champions Ronald Volker and Marc Rheinard.

A very pleased Sudhoff summed up his Q3 TQ run with, ‘Third time lucky’. The German, who is chasing after his first ever ETS win, added, ‘we changed the car a little to get more steering but I think the track is slower and that was causing more push’. Acknowledging, ‘Bruno had bad luck with a back marker’, and having had some very slight errors in Q1 & 2, he said, ‘It was a completely clean. It was my best run from a driving point of view’. In the hunt for his first ever ETS overall TQ going into the final qualifier he concluded, ‘the thing we changed felt weird so we need to decide if we change something else for the last one but my confidence is there as I did the 5-minutes without any mistake’.

Asked his thoughts on his run, Coelho replied, ‘Let’s say I was just unlucky’. Sharing Sudhoff’s commenting on the track, the Portuguese driver said, ‘I think the track was slower and more loose. I think because it was more hot in the hall’. Making changes to his T4 for the round he said ‘the car was better for sure’ but they planned more changes for the deciding qualifier.

Hagberg wasn’t happy about his lack of pace to contend for a second TQ run. The Swede said, ‘I had a clean run. I didn’t touch the car, I just switched to my other set of tyres to have both sets with equal amount of runs of them but I lost 3-seconds out of one set of tyres’. He added, ‘I will revert to my other tyres for the last one because this set just didn’t have the grip of the other set’.

Best of the Infinity team once again, Prumper said, ‘I used a completely different car, this one had a softer chassis’. The multiple ETS race winner continued, ‘the two cars feel much the same but this one was easier to drive at the chicane but on other parts was more difficult so I don’t know what to do’.

Yokomo driver Volker said, ‘the car was now similar to Q1 and I almost got another 3rd. I just missed out by a couple of tenths but overall I’m fourth so basically best of the rest. The Top 3 are a different pace’. Having tried changes for Q2 that left him with a complete lack of pace, the German said, ‘we will do more changes for the next one. We need to find more rotation without upsetting the balance. In the last one my best lap was one of the slowest of the heat’.

While it is still all to play for in terms of the Volante Modified overall TQ, the first to secure TQ honours in Daun has gone to Alexander Stocker. Taking the TQ and overall win in the Infinity 40+ Masters class at the season opener in Vienna, the former Pro Stock champion made it another TQ run in the third round to secure pole for tomorrow’s triple A-Mains. In Formula, Jan Ratheisky backed up his Q2 result for a second TQ run, this time ahead of Olivier Bultynck with David Ehrbar, Ratheisky’s only challenger for the TQ going into the final round, third.

In Pro Stock, Max Machler was obviously spurred on by Sudhoff’s performance in Modified, with the Awesomatix Team Manager topping Q3 just ahead of Xray’s Leo Arnold who took the previous qualifier. Topping the opening qualifier Ratheisky completed the Top 3 with everything up for grabs in the fourth & final round of qualifying. In 17.5 Stock, Daniel Pöhlmann became the third different driver to top the times when the ETS Vienna winner took it from Alexander Müller and Alojzij Osvald.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

February 9, 2019

Chassis Focus – Alexander Hagberg

Chassis – Xray T4 2019
Motor – Hobbywing G3 5.0T
ESC – Hobbywing Prototype
Batteries – Sunpadow LCG 3800 Gold Series
Tires – Volante (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/BR1 BC1863X
Bodyshell – Montech Racer

Remarks – Having TQ’d the second round of qualifying Alex is running Xray’s T4 is fitted with two preproduction items. The first of those is the alu chassis which features chamfered edges and which Xray didn’t want photographed. The other preproduction part is a brass material shortie pack battery holder. In terms of optionals, Alex is using a 1.6mm top deck to match the flex that comes with running an alu chassis, steel solid axle outdrives and a 1.3mm front anti roll bar which is softer than the kit bar and helps create more front traction. Finally Alex is running a new prototype speedo, which Hobbywing have asked us to blur in the chassis photos.

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