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April 13, 2018

Coelho rises to the top to TQ opening qualifier in Spain

Having started out the day somewhat out of position with the 5th fastest time in CP1, Bruno Coelho has risen to the top to end the day with a TQ in the opening qualifier at the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Spain. Carrying the No.2 for qualifying, the Xray driver would deny top seed Ronald Volker the TQ by 9/10th of the second, the current and former champions having a distinct advantage over the rest of the field. It would be Christopher Krapp who would complete the Top 3 just ahead of Freddy Sudhoff while Alexander Hagberg and Marc Rheinard rounded out the Top 6. With many predicting tyre strategy will be an important element this weekend as drivers have been reduced to two sets of race tyres, Infinity’s Jilles Groskamp and Serpent’s Viktor Wilck opted to gamble and not start Q1 hoping to steal an advantage during the remaining three qualifiers on tomorrow’s schedule.

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April 13, 2018

Volker is Top Seed for qualifying at ETS Spain

Ronald Volker is the top seed for qualifying at Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Spain. Having enjoyed a promising day of free practice yesterday when he put his Yokomo top of the times sheets, Volker went from 3rd quickest to the top in the second of the day’s two controlled practice setting the fastest 3-laps with an improvement of almost 1-second over his CP1 time. 4/10ths of a second off, joint championship leader Bruno Coelho would end practice second fastest ahead of CP1 pace setter Akio Sobue. Jilles Groskamp and Infinity team-mate Marc Rheinard completed the Top 5 ahead of Freddy Sudhoff who was the only one in the Top 28 not to improve their time on the second 4-minute controlled practice run.

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April 13, 2018

Sobue tops first controlled practice at ETS Spain

The outdoor part of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series is now official underway with Akio Sobue topping the first seeding round at the large Osoger RC track in Madrid, Spain. With huge anticipation ahead of the first asphalt round, drivers always looking forward to racing outside, it has it risks and overnight rain delayed the official start to the weekend by 4-hours. Luckily the majority of drivers managed 6 rounds of free practice yesterday (Thursday) on the large track allowing the event to start directly with the first of the 2 seeding rounds. Setting a fastest 3-consecutive laps time of 56.652, Sobue’s advantage was substantial with the Infinity driver’s closest rival Freddy Südhoff some 4/10th off. An impressive start to the weekend from Südhoff, it was Ronald Volker, quickest yesterday, who completed the Top 3, 5/100ths of a second back. For Championship leaders Marc Rheinard and Bruno Coelho, they set the 4th and 5th fastest times respectively with Viktor Wilck completing the Top 6.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

April 13, 2018

Rheinard & Coelho share lead as ETS moves outdoors in Spain

With the two carpet races on this year’s Yokomo Euro Touring Series leaving Marc Rheinard and Bruno Coelho sharing the lead in the points table, the championship moves to Spain this weekend (13-15 April) for Europe’s first major international outdoor race of 2018. With the large Asoger track having made a popular debut on the ETS calendar 12-months ago, it was to be Coelho who would go down as the first winner in Madrid enroute to the successful defence of his championship title. Like last season, the Xray driver again starts off the switch to asphalt at the top of the points but this time he shares it with Rheinard. The Infinity driver won the season opener in Austria ahead of Coelho with the duo swapping positions at Round 2 and now they each want to leave Spain with a second win and break clear of their rivals.

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April 12, 2018

IFMAR EP On-road Worlds warm-up – Announcement

The warm-up race for the 2018 IFMAR Electric On-road World Championships will be held on the weekend of the 29th of April at the Welkom RC Arena in Welkom, South Africa. It is a joint event with round 2 of the SARDA Nationals and the race also marks the opening of the new asphalt indoor facility. Scotty Ernst has been confirmed as race control and the announcer at this event with ten professional and International drivers attending the warm-up. The owner and host Antonio Caroli is working day and night to prepare the facility to ensure that a memorable event is presented with the track’ most important features are complete such as main building, asphalt track and drivers stand, toilets and showers, bar area, on site hobby shop and the kitchen and bar area. The purposely built pit tables will be installed next week and then all other cosmetics and final touches done over the next few months.

April 12, 2018

2018 Asian Onroad Championships Rd1 – Report

The first round of this year’s Asian Onroad Championships was held at Shanghai’s RCIv2 facility. In Modified Touring it was the two Team Destiny drivers Yugo Nagashima and Jin Sawada, claiming a win each in the opening A-mains, who would decide the race for the overall win. In the hunt though for a top spot also was 2nd qualifier Xray driver JJ Wang who had a 2nd and a 4th place finish coming into the A3 final. The top four on the grid got away cleanly at the sound of the tone and freight trained through the field with only 3-seconds separating them. They would carry this momentum along with super clean racing and finish the way they started. Yugo Nagashima would claim his second win and overall win. JJ Wang claimed 2nd and with his other finishes put him 3rd on the podium and Jin Sawada finished 3rd, but with his other finishes he would claim the over all 2nd.

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April 11, 2018

Awesomatix welcome Lucas Urbain

Awesomatix have announced the signing of French Touring Modified frontrunner and former ETS and Euros A-main finalist, Lucas Urbain to their factory team. Lucas will attend at all major races including all ETS rounds, the Euros and also the Worlds in South Africa. Furthermore he will be involved in research and development of the proactive Russian brand. The former VBC Racing driver had the following to say bout the deal:

I would like to thank Max and Oleg as well as the whole Awesomatix Team for granting me the opportunity to join them. I am looking forward to join or re-join a bunch of my long time racing friends in the team and getting the chance to compete with one of the most competitive car available on top of that. I will be put to the test as soon as this weekend as the ETS in Madrid is my first race with my new gear and I cannot wait to get started. Cheers, and see you all trackside!

Source: Awesomatix [awesomatix.com]

April 9, 2018

Hagberg & Payne take EFRA 1/12th titles

The 2018 EFRA 1/12th scale European Championships were held at the Racing Arena Limburg this past weekend. With nearly 150 entries the event was very well attended, making for competitive racing in both the Modified and Stock classes and ultimately it was Alexander Hagberg with the overall TQ from Olly Jefferies in the Modified class as Ollie Payne snatched the TQ in the Stock category from Michal Orlowski. In Modified Alexander Hagberg broke away at the start of the first leg, with Olly Jefferies running around a second behind him initially. This continued for six minutes, till Alex clipped a bot dot in the race control chicane, sending him into the barriers and an eventual retirement. This allowed Olly through to take the leg win, with Ollie Payne and Michel Orlowski continuing their battle from the stock class behind him. Ollie prevailed to take second with Michel third.

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