Czech driver Marek Cerny has taken the 2014 EFRA Electric Touring Car ‘Spec’ European title in Alcobendas today. With the Spec class being run alongside Modified, in order to help make the two events viable and encourage more collaboration between the different levels of driver, a number of big names in the world of Stock class Touring Car racing were present. Domination from Team Xray as they locked out the podium by the end of the event, with number of their drivers in contention for the title!
The battle was essentially between Marek, Italy’s Mattia Colina and Germany’s Jan Ratheisky – all representing Xray and LRP. Cerny secure the pole position, with two TQ runs and a second place, with Colina matching his score but narrowly losing out on the tie break. Ratheisky would line up third, after topping the final qualifier, ahead of Mike Govig (DK), Francesco Martini (IT), Jamie de Esteban (ES), Pierre Delorme (FR), Gonzalo Gomez (ES), Jean Delorme (FR) and Carlos Fernandez (ES).
Colina took the first A Final, with Cerny finishing second and Ratheisky third, before Cerny fitted new tyres to take the second and third finals, with Ratheisky second in both. Unfortunately, Colina only ended up with a best of fourth from the remaining finals, which left Ratheisky to take second overall ahead of the Italian.
The 1/10 European Touring Car Championships 2014 was held in Madrid, Spain and it was for the f...irst time when modified and stock class were run together. The race started on Thursday with free practice and continued with timed practice on Friday and two qualifiers rounds. Another 3 qualifiers rounds were held on Saturday and triple finals on Sunday.
Team XRAY was presented at the Championship with Alexander Hagberg, Steven Weiss, Martin Hudy, Bruno Coelho, Olly Jefferies, and Alessio Menicucci in the modified class and Marek Cerny, Mattia Collina, Jan Ratheisky, Mike Gosvig, Francesco Martini and with other French and Spanish drivers in stock class. XRAY was once again the most favorite and most used car at the European Championship and the team drivers and Spanish distributor was at the place to provide all XRAY drivers the best support possible.
The team started the race with the set-up from the warm-up and immediately from the start it was clear that the speed and performance is there. In the modified class it was Alex and Bruno Coelho who belonged to the fastest drivers in the modified class. In stock class it was sure that the XRAY drivers were the fastest from all with Marek Cerny, Mattia Collina and Jan Ratheisky on top. Our new team member Mike Gosvig who raced the T4 for the first time showed a great performance as well finishing 4th after timed practice.
With the new rule of 2 sets of tires for 5 rounds of qualifiers with 3 best rounds to count it was clear that the tire strategy will play a key role. We have collected mixed luck in the qualifiers. Alexander who was one of the fastest drivers the whole practice decided to skip 1st round and used new tires in round 2 and 3 and then rear tires from both sets for 4th qualifier. The strategy was perfect as Alex was super-fast on new tires and he was able to make very good time also on the rear tires. However the luck was not on his side. In round 2 when he was on new tires the particular tire set was not good and car slide in all right oriented corners. He lost a lot of time at the beginning and he could manage to gain only the 4th fastest time. In round 3 when he was on new set again, he was on TQ run when the rear belt broke. This was very frustrating as he knew that even he had speed to fight for a win, suddenly he was out of chance for win and had to fight only for A-main result. However Alex showed his driving skills and car performance and he was able to make 4th and another top 10 position on used tires. Alessio went for the same strategy and he qualified 6th and 7th and was also on top 10 run on rear used tires when a failure happened and his chance for A-main were gone. Steven Weiss went on new tires 1st and 3rd round skipping the 2nd round and he qualified 4th and 5th and for him was enough to qualify in last round at 15th place on used to secure A-main position. The biggest surprise of the event was Bruno Coelho who was super-fast on new and also used tires and by impressive driving he was able to set overall TQ. It was fantastic result for our team as we achieved TQ after long time when we had many times bad luck. With 3 cars in top 10 and with TQ we were more than happy with the result.
In stock class it was a big fight among XRAY drivers and at the end it was Marek Cerny who set TQ in front of Mattia Collina and Jan Ratheisky. XRAY showed the total domination in stock class when we had 9 cars in top 10 and we qualified from 1 to 9.
It was clear that the finals will be mostly about tire strategy again. Bruno Coelho went on new tires for the first final. Bruno drove perfect final when he was challenged by Ronald who closely followed Bruno. Bruno drove perfect without any mistake and Ronald had no space for passing. All looked promising for us until the last lap when two corners before finish Bruno slightly opened in a corner which Ronald took benefit from and passed him so Bruno finished 2nd after extremely thrilling race.
Alex decided to use used tires for the first final and therefore he had no chance to fight for the win. In the second final Bruno had a great start again and was closely followed by Ronald but after only couple laps the speedo capacitor unsoldered from the speedo and the break stopped to work so Bruno without break had no chance to continue in the race. Ronald took the lead and had a good gap lead but Alex who was on new tires was extremely fast and started to catch Ronald very quickly. The problem for Alex was the traffic as he had to wait for a mistakes of drivers in front of him or to find small space for passing. In 4th minute he became 2nd and started to catch Ronald immediately but he had not enough time and finished 2nd closely behind Ronald. So the European champion title was decided and Ronald won again and he showed once again amazing driving skills.
In the third deciding final, Jilles who was on the new tires took an early lead in front of Bruno and Marc. Alex was again super-fast and had a good chance to fight for the podium but was crashed from behind by Loic Jasmin and his chance for podium was ruined. Bruno finished 3rd in that final which secured him the overall 2nd spot. Steven was also very unlucky in the finals when he was crashed several times and mainly in the second final when he was crashed from behind right on the start and had not even chance to drive one lap. So an overall 10th place was disappointing result for Steven but on the other hand it was his first A-main final at the EC since he left our team back in 2007.
The finals in the stock class were interesting and exciting to watch. Marek decided to use used tires in front and new in rear so he would drive two finals on new tires in rear while Mattia went on new tires in first final and Jan in 2nd final. In the first final Mattia clearly pass Marek after the start and kept the leading position until the end in front of Marek and Jan. In the second final Marek slide on the curb which Mattia and Jan took as an advantage and passed Marek. Jan who was on new tires was able to pass Mattia and kept the lead until the last 30 seconds when Marek with perfect driving was able to pass Jan and won by very small margin. In the last deciding final Marek stayed calm for the whole run and by perfect driving he did not get nobody chance to pass and won in front of Jan and won the European Championship title. The whole stock race was a great XRAY performance when we claimed TQ honors and took the entire whole podium and had 9 cars in top 10. What a great success.
Big thanks to everybody at the team for fantastic team work. Hope to see you soon.
Stock result:
1. Marek Cerny - XRAY
2. Jan Ratheisky - XRAY
3. Mattia Colina - XRAY
4. Pierre Delorme - XRAY
5. Mike Gosvig - XRAY
6. Francesco Martini - XRAY
7. Carlos Espinosa
8. Gonzalo Casa - XRAY
9. Jean Delorme - XRAY
10.Jaime Calderon – XRAY
Modified result:
1. Ronald Völker
2. Bruno Coelho – XRAY
3. Marc Rheinard
4. Jilles Groskamp
5. Alexander Hagberg – XRAY
6. Elliott Harper
7. Frederik Südhoff
8. Loic Jasmin
9. Viktor Wilck
10.Steven Weiss – XRAY
Report by Martin Hudy
