Feldmann & Stegmuller take EFRA Large scale titles

The Tourlaville club in Northern France hosted the EFRA On-road Large Scale European Championships last week. The championships would be decided in a Touring Car and the Formula class. In the Touring Car final the result was never in doubt as “Mighty” Markus Feldman took his 7th European title – but more significantly his first since 2010 with a lights to flag victory. Behind him the podium places were always in doubt as a battle royale between 2017 Euro Champ Bernard Arnaldi, up and coming star Patrick Folmann and 2016 Champ Giovanni Verbrugghe entertained the huge crowd for over half the 30 minutes of the final. In the end the Dane Folmann tangled with Arnaldi allowing Verbrugghe to slip past for 2nd. Folmann picked up 3rd when Arnaldi had to retire towards the end much to the disappointment of his fellow countrymen lining the track. This left a jubilant Feldmann to take the trophy, which he described as “Easy” thanks to “The fantastic set up and work from my mechanic”.

From the tone of the Formula A-main final, Tobias Gagesch leapt into the lead and began to pull away, this was entirely expected as the German had dominated qualifying, however after a couple of laps it became clear that all was not right with his car as he consistently struggled to get the car to turn into the hairpin at the bottom of the circuit. The initial beneficiary of this was fellow German Timo Nau who nipped past to establish a firm lead. Soon after Kevin Stegmuller also got past Tobias and began hunting Timo down. Whilst Kevin seemed to have more speed the Swiss racer could not seem to get on terms with Timo as first a flip and then a small accident kept him some way behind. However in the closing minutes he began to gain rapidly on Nau whose car was beginning to struggle slightly to put down its power and in a thrilling climax Kevin swept into the lead on the penultimate lap to claim the crown. Timo held onto 2nd form a very disappointed Tobias.

Source: EFRA [efra.ws]