Chassis – HB Pro5 Motor – Orion 4.5 ESC – Orion Batteries – Orion 6000 Tires – Ride (handout) Radio/Servo – Sanwa Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R Remarks – 2012 World Champion Jilles Groskamp is running a pretty stock version of the HB Pro5. The Dutchman is using Lunsford titanium turnbuckles throughout the car while the front end of the car features caster blocks from the previous HB TCXX car.
Round 5 of the 2015 ETS series was held at the beautiful "Ville
de Luxembourg" track in Luxembourg. This track is famous for
it’s "Lacuna Seca Corkscrew" with an amazing 2 meter
elevation difference. This was also the track I took my first
European Title back in 2009.
Thursday started with free practice in groups. With a total of
300 participants it was again a busy race with lots of racing in
Formule 1, Stock and Modified touring car class. With lots of
clouds and wind it was very cool but fortunate it stayed dry with
good traction from the early stages of practice.
With practice under way it was Freddy posting good laptimes and
soon I tried to copy more his setup to have a good starting
setup.
First thing that was noticeable was raising the rear diff to its
highest postion increased cornerspeed and the car became a lot
faster in the sweeper on the end of the straight. Later in practice
I played with different rollcenter postion and find out that anti
dive was the way to go and made the car turn very nicely. On the
end of day one it was Freddy and I posting top 10 times with Andy
struggling a bit but not far behind.
On Friday two more free practice heats were scheduled with two
controlled rounds to use those for the reseeding. Unfortunately it
started raining so one free practice had to be cancelled. I ended
up qualified 7th for the A group qualifier with Freddy in 9th and
Andy overall 12th. In the first qualifier I was be able to run a
7th overall time, car felt very good with the race tires but some
minor driver error prevented to be seeded higher. I had good hopes
for Saturday as the car felt better and better.
On Saturday three more rounds of qualifying were scheduled and
with more wind and a lot cooler conditions it was far from good
conditions. In the second round of qualification I was battling
with Ronald Volker for the TQ and I missed it by less then 4 tens,
at that moment I ran the second run on the tires and it was clear
that “used tires” could be same speed or even faster
then new tires. This gave me already an A-main spot but of course I
felt now there was a lot more potential then that. The third round
I decided to run again with the old tires to save a fresh set for
the last round. I had a good pace with a third for that round.
Final round I decide to run fresh to have in my mind I could use
them tomorrow in the mains, after some good runs with 2e run tires.
On the end of qualifying I ended up third behind Volker and
Hagberg.
Sunday triple mains were scheduled and all A-main driver could
run fresh tires each final. However I decided to run my set of the
last qualification and it paid off by taking a solid win while
other struggle a bit with traction my car was glued to the track
and I could easily overtake the two cars in front of my before the
second lap.
For the second final I decided to run new tires to have again a
set broken-in for the third final. But even now I was very
competitive and I was fighting with Ronald and Bruno for the lead.
After 4 minutes into the run I decided to push harder to try to
overtake Ronald and I managed to get the inside line going up into
the Corkscrew but unfortunate I rolled the car in the next corner
by taking the curb a mm too close. This resulted in a fourth
position for the second final.
So going into the third main there was still 4 drivers with a
change of winning. Again I had a great start by overtaking Hagberg
in the first corner and Ronald in the second lap. However I got too
excited when I got the inside by Ronald and again I rolled it . I
ended up on the roof with no marshall close so I lost a lot of
time. While setting the fastest laps of the race in the third final
I wasn’t be able to catch the leaders anymore and I had to
settle with an third place overall while Bruno took the overall win
with Rheinard in second.
Overall it was a great weekend for HB to finally got back on the
podium and we showed the potential of the car.
