April 18, 2018

2018 RC-Lemans Series Rd1 – Report

The opening round of the 13th RC-Lemans series season was held at the Belgian Genk track last weekend. The weather was dry except for some rain before race day, however the qualifiers on Sunday would be held on a dry track. In the LMP1 Modified class all A-finalists would score their fastest run in the final qualifier and it was vice-champion, Tim Altmann with the overall TQ and a new track record of 14.637s, some 0.9s in front Tobias Weist. Only tenths of a second adrift, Reinder Wilms and Kai Altmann would make up the top 4 as former 40+ champion, Joachim Behnken and LMP2 champ, Andreas Dick also made the A-main.

Over in LMP2 Stock it was Rainer Schad, 2017 overall podium finisher, who pulled the fastest time from local hero Michael van der Velden, and Dirk Elsebusch, at his maiden Pro10 race. Jörn Bauer and former champion, Sascha Lennartz completed the top 5.

In the opening LMP1 A-main the fight for the lead was on between Tim and Tobias with the latter taking profit of an error of Tim, who in turn was hot on the heels of Tobias later on. Following a mishap of Tobias, Tim was promoted into the lead again in the closing stages while Tobias had to defend against Reinder. In the end Tim brought home the win from Tim 2nd and Reinder, only 0.3s behind, in 3rd. A2 then was a pretty straight forward affair with Tim bringing home the win with the only 20-laps run as Tobias, Kai and Reinder came in 2nd to 4th, covered by only 0.6s on the line as Tobias scored a new fastest lap of 14.548s. A3 saw Tim starting again, despite having already snatched the day’s win. On lap 2 Tobias tried to pass Tim for the lead but unfortunately both made contact at the end of the straight, sending Tim into the grass and ending Tobias’ race. This left Reinder in the lead followed by Kai who was in desperate search of some space to overtake. Ultimately it was Tobias with the overall runner-up spot from Reinder, with the two having to use the tie-breaker.

In the LMP2 Stock class Rainer Schad made a clean sweep, winning all three A-mains by about a lap. Behind him lots of position changes took place and in A1 it was Dirk Elsebusch who was able to make up some time and finish in P2, just in front of Kai Asmer, starting from the 6th spot on the grid. In A2 Sascha Lennartz was in chase of a podium finish, scoring a P2 behind Rainer and in front of P3 finisher Michel van der Velden. In the third A-main Dirk took profit of a mishap of Michel and he was able to bring home the runner-up spot in the 7-minute leg. Overall it was Rainder Schad with the win from Rookie Dirk Elsebusch while Michel van der Velden snatched the final podium spot from Sascha Lennartz in the tie-breaker.

Source: RC-Lemans [rc-lemans.de]



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