May 23, 2017

Swiss Nitro On-road Nationals Rd2 – Report

The second round of the Swiss Nitro On-road Nationals was held at the Aigen track in changing weather conditions. The event started off on Friday with practice rounds on a sugared track but during the afternoon it started to rain. On Saturday morning the track was still wet but it dried fast, allowing for another 20 minutes of practice to adapt the drivers and cars to the now much lower traction. Unfortunately during qualifying it started to rain again and in the 1/8th class it was Simon Kurzbuch who made the best out of the conditions to take the TQ in front of Hächler and Pesenti.

Hächler, Pesenti, Henzi and Hasler took part to the SuperPole race but unfortunately Hächler couldn’t start because he crashed his car during the final lap. Mattia took the lead until the last minute, when Hasler did three super fast laps in order to be in the A-Main with Kurzbuch.

In the 1/10th Touring class Patrick Fankhauser took the pole position in front of Traugott Schär, Maurice Lüscher, Michael Schäfer und Roger Fasler. Due to the fact that drivers must keep the car they used on the last round, only Schäfer and Schär had the car with dry tyres and so Traugott could take the spot in the A-Main in front of Schäfer.

Sunday was another day with strange weather forecast but luckily the 1/8th final was run on a dry track. Mattia Pesenti started from position number 3 and took the 2nd place behind Kurzbuch already in the first lap, followed by Silvio Hächler but up front Simon was so fast and after 10 minutes he already had 10 seconds gap from Mattia and Silvio. At the third pit stop Mattia made a mistake and lost the 2nd place while Simon had some engine problems at about the 17 minutes mark and he had to stop his race. Silvio decided to change the tyres after 20 minutes and Mattia knew that his car was still very fast with small tires too, so he changed the tyres some 25 minutes into the race. After changing tyres Mattia and Silvio were still in the same lap, but Silvio had a 10 seconds advantage. In the final 10 minutes Mattia pushed the car to the limit, setting a very fast lap of 16.780, only 0.1s from the best lap of Simon Kurzbuch. He tried to push in order to pass Silvio in the last laps but it wasn’t to be. Mattia closed his race in 2nd position only 1 second behind Silvio Hächler.

1/8th final results:
1. Silvio Hächler – ARC
2. Mattia Pesenti – Xray
3. Christopher Biernat – Capricorn
4. Christophe Pethoud – ARC
5. Raphael Roider – ARC
6. Thomas Henzi – Xray
7. Remy Hasler – Mugen
8. Simon Kurzbuch – Shepherd
9. Jürg Nydegger – Shepherd
10.Luca Martinelli – ARC

The 1/10th Touring class started with a wet track due to a shower right before the start. Traugott Schaer decided to start the final with intermediate tyres while almost everybody was running on wet tyres. Schaer was very fast during the first minutes. After 10 minutes he decided to change to dry tires because the track started to dry up and he was aware that he would not be able to end the race on the set of tyres. During the pit stop Traugott lost about four laps due to a mishap. This allowed Kevin Lehnerr in the lead with about 3 laps but Kevin was on wet tyres and in the closing stages he ran out of front tyres which allowed Traugott by to win the race in front of Michael Schäfer and Kevin Lehnerr.

1/10th Touring final results:
1. Traugott Schär
2. Michael Schäfer
3. Kevin Lehnherr
4. Patrick Fankhauser
5. Maurice Lüscher
6. Christian Lehnherr
7. Roger Fasler
8. Patrick Courtet
9. Cédric Ansermoz
10.Donato Larocca

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]



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