RC-Lemans Series Rd2 – Report
The second round of the RC-Lemans Series was held at the Dutch Apeldoorn track. A dusty track on Friday made things challenging for the handful of drivers that attended the free practice with overnight rain solving the dust issue but the track still offered relatively low traction. In the fast LMP1 Modified class Reinder Wilms laid down the fastest run after the three rounds of qualifying. The traction level increased from round to round and already in Q2 Reinder was a lap quicker compared to Q1 with Tim and Kai Altmann coming in 2nd and 3rd. Despite two quick runs from Reinder, Kai would snatch the overall TQ in the final round from Tim and Reinder. Christian Fischer and Joachim Behnken completed the top 5 result.
In the LMP2 Stock class Mathijs Hermens laid down the quickest run in Q2 followed by Andreas Dick and local hero Paul Seyn. Tim Jansen and 2015 LMP2 champion Sascha Lennartz came in 4th and 5th respectively.
The finals offered pure racing. Especially Tim and Kai in the LMP1 class laid down a crowd pleasing show when both swapped positions a couple of times. Ultimately Tim would bring home the win in A1 from Kai in second. Some 10 seconds back Reinder brought home the 3rd place. In A2 Tim put a lot of pressure on Kai and he tried his best to get past, running very tight lines while having to have an eye on Reinder who was still in his slipstream. In the end Kai was able to bring home the win some 3/10th of a second in front of Tim and Reinder with all three being covered by about one second. A3 then was a demonstration of current RC-Lemans champion Tim. Some four laps into the race Kai made a mistake which promoted Tim into the lead that he would hold onto until the chequered flag. Reinder would end the race one lap down with a recovering Kai snatching the 3rd place. As for the overall result Tim brought home a maiden win this season with Kai and Reinder in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
In the LMP2 finals Mathijs made maximum use of his pole position. Leaving Andy behind he brought home the win with a 1-second margin while Paul Seyn ended the main on the 3 spot. A2 then saw the holeshot of Andy who obtained the lead while Mathijs had to recover as Tim Jansen also had a blast of a take off. Mathijs and Paul made use a mishap of Tim to battle for the 2 spot while up front Andy brought home the win in A2 from Mathijs who took a narrow 2nd place only 4/10th of a second in front of Paul. This set the stage for an exciting third leg but unfortunately Mathijs spun at the start which made way for Andy. Mathijs dropped down to 5th but soon recovered to 3rd behind Paul. With the fastest lap of the race Mathijs found a way past Paul but it was too late to start chasing Andy who brought home a comfortable win from Mathijs and Paul. Overall Andy would take the day’s win from Mathijs and Paul.
Source: RC-Lemans [rc-lemans.de]
