Rheinard and Rathiesky won ETS opener in Czech Republic

0 Dec. 15, 2015, 12:12 p.m.

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Race report from XRAY (by Jan Rathiesky and Bruno Coelho):
www.teamxray.com

T4 & X1 win ETS R1 in Hrotovice, Czech republic
Race report ETS Rd1 11-13.12.2015 – Hrotovice – Czech Republic

Last weekend I was racing at the season opener of the popular ETS season 2015/201Luckily at this event it was allowed to run all three classes so I will give you a short report of each class.

STOCK:

Practice: I started with a brand new car and my "basic setup" which I used at nearly all indoor races last year and my car was absolutely amazing to drive for me. Based on the new Volante tires my car was a bit oversteering but I love this so much to drive because you still have 30% steering locked each corner ;) I was able to set the fastest three laps in a row and set the "practice TQ"

Qually: I didn’t change anything on my car and was able to set the fastest pace in Q1 and Q2. In Q3 I made my first mistake by driving three classes. I was mounting my 2nd set of mod tires to my stock car and realized it on the way to the tech inspection. Changing to my stock tires without additive was drivable... but for sure not fast enough to secure me the safe TQ. In Q4 the track changed to a lot of more overall traction and I made an early mistake which cost me the pace for 1st place. So Marek was on a good run and won that heat with .3 gap on me. With this result I secured the TQ in the stock class ;)

Finals:

Final 1: I was leading like 4 mins getting a hard time from my team mate Marek Cerny. We created a big gap on 3rd place so Marek was pushing a bit harder and accidentally hit the rear of my car. Fairly he was waiting outside until marshall turned my car back on wheels. As I wanted to take my position back I drove the corner too tight making sure I dont hit Marek. Badly, another unwanted accident happened between us and made him to lose his position and drop down one place. Now the whole field was tight together with me in the front. One lap later there were some huge crashes behind me so I could pull away cruise for the win of Final 1 ;)

Final 2: Well I can say this a bit shorter. I was able to make a tone to tone win which secured me the overall win in this race. Still 5 mins under pressure but more safe this time. 

FORMULA 1:

Practice:

I was changing my car each round to learn what I have to do with the new race tires which are very soft. In the end I had a fast car but very hard to handle and set the 4th fastest time in three laps in a row.

Qualli: In Q1 I got unexpected traction roll in every lap at the end of the straight and I finished 10th I guess. Overnight we changed the whole car to a very understeering safe setup. Alu Chassis, Glued on tires and more. This allowed me to win Q2, 3 and 4 and gave me the overall TQ also in F1;)

 Final 1: I decided to make even more changes to get a safer car to withstand the pressure I was expecting in the final runs. Luckily I did the right choice as I got under huge pressure from Olly who pushed hard from 5th on the grid and was on my tail literally in no time. Very good hard racing with luck on my side as I crossed the finish line in first place.

Final 2: I didn’t change anything on my car as my strategy in first final worked really well. But this time there were some big crashes behind me so I safely made a tone to tone win and achieved the 2nd overall win this weekend.

MOD:

Well also my mod car worked very well and I could secure the 5th place in the B main. In the finals I was pushing hard to finish 2nd and 4th. With these results and points system I finished 4th overall. Very proud to fight with some best drivers of the world.

Report by Bruno:

This weekend was the first ETS Round with over 300 entries, the level of this event was much higher than the last one. My car worked very well during the weekend, unfortunately I was not able to get the TQ losing two times my first place by 0.100s.

In the finals I had a big fight with Volker and Rheinard which I enjoyed a lot, driving 5 minutes so close and so fast is really nice, on carpet track is almost impossible to overtake and it was not possible for me so I finished 3rd in 2 finals.

I want to congratulate to the whole XRAY team for the really hard work in all classes, we get Top3 cars in stock class, win and 5 cars in top ten of the Formula class and 4 XRAY cars in top ten of the Modified class. Another amazing achievement at ETS!