Sudhoff dominates A1 at ETS Spain
Freddy Sudhoff put in a dominant performance in the opening A-Main this morning at Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series. Starting from a career first TQ, the Awesomatix driver immediately pulled clear of the field in the cold conditions helped by a slow starting Ronald Volker from second on the grid who stacked the field up behind him. Marc Rheinard would be the only one to find away passed the Yokomo, driving around the outside of his fellow countryman. Setting about chasing down Sudhoff, Rheinard would unexplainably spin off the track at the loop, dropping him back into the clutches of Volker and Christopher Krapp with a second spin at the end of the straight allowing both to go by to battle it out for second as Rheinard struggled with his car and dropped to last. Afterwards the Infinity driver said everything on the car appeared fine so the only other explanation he could think off was a possible issue with his set of tyres. Seeing off the challenge of his team-mate Krapp, Volker would hold onto second with Akio Sobue fourth, almost 3-seconds back.
Commenting on the first A-Main encounter, Sudhoff said, ‘I was a little but lucky Ronald dod not have pace at the beginning and blocked the field’. He continued, ‘It is very cold this morning so the first few laps it was loose in the rear but after 2-minutes it was stable. The car is performing awesome and if I need more speed it is there’. Looking to A2 when he could potentially claim his first ever ETS victory, the German said, ‘I will try to do the same thing but it is more than 2-hours away so its going to be a new track and another new challenge’.
‘I have mixed feeling about this one’, was Volker’s reaction after A1. The championship leader continued, ‘I suffered with rear grip the first few laps which was the complete opposite to Marc so I couldn’t fight him. After 2-minutes the rear grip came in and luckily I was able to stay second. I can’t be too unhappy with the result given how the car was at the start and I’m happy Christopher now has a good car too and could finish P3. We had a good battle’. The former World Champion added, ‘we might have a set-up issue when it is very cold but A2 will have a little sunshine which should help warm things up. We will consider our tyre prep near to the race time’.
Starting from 7th on the grid, Krapp said, ‘I am happy to get a good run after a not so good qualifying. The car and driver were not on point’. Losing out on the win here in Spain last year on the tie break, the German added, ‘we changed a bunch of things on the car and went more in the direction of Ronald’s set-up but I also drove much better than yesterday. I would have liked more from the race as I think my pace now is better than 3rd’. He concluded, ‘I hope more stuff happens in the next one’.
In the first of the Pro Stock A-Mains it was also a dominant win for Top Qualifier Simon Lauter as the Top 3 finished as they started, Olivier Bultynck second and Dominic Vogl third. In Formula, pole sitter Jan Ratheisky lost traction on the first corner allowing the Infinity of Jitse Miedema through for an easy win ahead of the Serpent of former champion David Ehrbar as Ratheisky battled for third with Spain’s Ivan Lopez who got the better of the reigning champion.
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