Coelho takes ETS points lead with 2nd in Austria
Bruno Coelho leaves Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series as the new points leader, 2nd overall in Austria giving him a 1-point advantage over reigning champion Ronald Volker and Marc Rheinard as the championship moves onto asphalt. With Volker wrapping up his first win of the season in A2 at the final carpet race to become the third different winner of Season #9, the third A-Main was all about deciding the podium order behind the Yokomo driver. Leading away the field, Coelho would ultimately take a straight forward win over Rheinard an initially challenge fading over the race. Finishing A3 second ahead of Alexander Hagberg, Rheinard who came into the weekend as joint leader of the championship with Coelho would complete the overall podium.
Summing up the weekend Coelho said, ‘Its a good result. Second is not bad as it puts us top of the standings which is a very different position to where we were three rounds into the championship last year’. On A3 the Portuguese driver, who had an exchange of words with Rheinard during qualifying, said his win over the German was ‘more or less easy’. Trying to just run a clean run he said ‘a mistake early on let Marc catch me but he was not as fast as Volker and I was able to pull away again’. Commenting on Volker’s pace this weekend he said ‘Having struggled in the first two races Yokomo have improved their car but we will have to wait and see how it is on asphalt’. A driver who claimed his first ever ETS win on asphalt adding a second one at the last season’s finale, Coelho said ‘we have tested our car on asphalt and it works very well but we need to see how it is compared to our competitors’.
‘I wanted to be second but at least I got a podium’, was Rheinard’s reaction after A3, the Tamiya driver looking for confirmation that he was only 1-point behind Coelho and equal with long standing ETS rival Volker. Having made changes to his soon to be released TRF419X, he said it was better than in the previous main but he ‘couldn’t attack’ as Hagberg was too close behind and he needed to maintain that gap to protect his podium result. Asked about Round 4, the ETS’ most winning driver said ‘I have no idea how we are on asphalt as we have a new car’, continuing ‘we did run it at TITC and it was good but that was high traction and on different tyres’. Planning to attend the ETS Warm-up Race at Riccione in Italy later this month he said that would be their first big asphalt test and important track time’.
Finishing third in A3 but missing out on the podium to finish 4th overall, Hagberg said the result was ‘the best I could do this time’. Runner-up to Coelho at the previous round of the championship in Germany, the Swede said ‘I struggled finding a set-up that worked for the full 5-minutes. If the car was good at the start it fell off at the end and when it was good at the end it didn’t feel good at the start’. ‘Looking forward to [racing on] asphalt’, like his team-mate he said testing on the surface had gone well so they where positive about the rest of the season. Behind Hagberg, Awesomatix’s Viljami Kutvonen completed his best performance of the season to complete the Top 5.
While the Volante Modified and Xray Pro Stock winners were decided after A2, the Serpent Formula class went to a showdown between Pro Stock winner Jan Ratheisky and Olivier Bultynck. In the end the reigning champion put in a perfect race to claim his second win of the year and maintaining his perfect winning form of Season #9 with a third consecutive victory. Winner of A2, Roche driver Bultynck would claim second overall with Serpent’s David Erhbar filling the last step on the podium.
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