John Ermen wins Dutch 1/8th nationals Rd5

The fifth round of the Dutch 1/8th on-road nationals took place at the legendary Apeldoorn track under scorching hot weather conditions. During Friday’s practice the drivers tried to adapt the chassis, tyres and engines as good as possible as the temperatures in the 36°C range caused the teams some problems here and there. Come Saturday the temperatures dropped a bit and this was reflected in the lap times that become more than half a second faster with the lowest temperatures and fastest times being achieved on Sunday. After three rounds of qualifying Robin d’Hondt took TQ followed by John Ermen and Steven Cuypers. Rick Vrienlijnck and Gunther van Staey followed in fourth and fifth place. In the semifinal B John Ermen had a very clean run and took the pole position for the final as Robin d’Hondt was some 13 seconds slower compared to the Xray driver.

The start of the final saw Robin, Rick and John taking off with no problem, quickly pulling away from the field. Robin and John chased each other closely until the first pit stop when the latter was able to open a gap on Robin. After 25 laps John made a driving error that let Robin pass him but after the second fuel stop Ermen was able to close the gap to the front runner and eventually passed him when Robin got scraped by a back marker. With John’s engine running a bit rich he had to come in for an additional fuel stop and after a tyre change he found himself in second place. Despite being faster he did not find a way past Robin and it needed some quick laps and a later fuel stop to overtake d’Hondt for the first place that John brought home with just 0.7s in front of Robin.

Top 10 result
1. John Ermen
2. Robin d’Hondt
3. Rick Vrienlijnck
4. Gunther van Staey
5. Arie Manten
6. Michiel Renting
7. Danny Leewis
8. John Lenaers
9. Joey Sorber
10.Marcel Schouten

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]