Coelho wins A2 with faultless drive
Having rolled his Xray on the first lap of the opening A-Main at ETS Germany, Bruno Coelho put in a faultless A2 drive to win comfortably ahead of A1 winner Alexander Hagberg and Ronald Volker. While the Top Qualifier ran an error free race the same couldn’t be said for others with Marc Rheinard, Viljami Kutvonen and Yannic Prümper all breaking their cars. Prümper wouldn’t even last a lap, an error sending him right into the path of 10th place start Marco Kaufmann with the massive impact putting both cars out in the spot.
‘Without mistakes the car is super fast’ was how Coelho summed up what was an uneventful race for the Portuguese driver. Winning by 8/10th of a second he said after his A1 error he ‘drove safely and all was ok’. Having finished 8th in the first final, the win leaves the 22-year-old perfect poised to claim his first ETS win on carpet.
The benefactor of his team-mate error in opening final, Hagberg was happy with his race to 2nd having seen off the attentions of both Rheinard and Volker saying ‘they never really had a chance to pass’. With Coelho able to pull away the Swede said his focus was to protect his 2nd describing Volker’s last lap last corner attempt to pass as a ‘desperate move’. Looking for more steering from his T4 for the final leg, the 2014 event winner said he would try to fight with his team-mate for the win.
Having got caught up in Rheinard’s first lap A1 error, Volker said of A2 ‘it was a better first lap’ but added ‘I didn’t feel I had the pace at the beginning’. Coming under serious attack from the Awesomatix of Kutvonen until the fast Finn made contact with the serrated edge of corner barrier which shifted the entire rear end of his A800, the Yokomo driver after this ‘went in all’ to try and catch the leaders. Within 2-laps of Kutvonen’s retirement, on lap 7 Rheinard would suffer the same faith. Closing on Hagberg, Volker said he ‘tried an aggressive move that didn’t pay but gladly didn’t mess up anyone’s race’. Not sure why his BD7 lacked traction over the early minutes of the race he said they need to get this figured out for A3.
Rheinard, pointing out the serrated side of the flexible corner section should be on the inside not out on the racing side, said the contact broke a C-Hub on his Tamiya. Having changed the set-up on his TRF419 after struggling in A1, he said the car was better allowing him to ‘push harder’. With the Xrays ‘looking not as fast as before’ the ETS Czech winner added had he not made his ‘stupid mistake’ ‘it could have been interesting’.
In the Serpent Formula class, A2 would produce the first overall winner in Muelheim-Kaerlich as Top Qualifier Jan Ratheisky again took a tone to tone win. The reigning 3-time Champion’s second win of the season, the Xray driver will head to Round 3 with a commanding lead in the standings. Behind Ratheisky, after retiring from A1 David Ehrbar took his Serpent to 2nd in A2, followed by the Roche of Olivier Bultynck holding off Masami Hirosaka for third.
For Pro Stock Top Qualifier and A1 winner Tony Streit, a kiss of the barrier coming onto the straight meant he would end a 4 year winning drought. Helped to a comfortable lead when the no.2 starting Ratheisky rolled on the opening lap, on lap 2 his Awesomatix would suffer a body tuck on the main straight after rubbing the barrier, dropping the German to 9th. This would hand Xray’s Mike Gosvig the lead with the Dane seeing off an intense challenge from Awesomatix pairing Bernhard Bopp and Maxim Laverychev, the Russian having a late bobble but still holding on for third.
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