Back from ETS round 5 in Luxembourg, it’s time for a Team Magic race analysis.
First thing is the car performance; it was very promising in practices, with many top 5 positions for Patrick Gassauer in ProStock. Patrick also finished fourth last year, with a promised third place on the podium until the last chicane of the last lap of the last finale where he was pushed out the track by his follower; so our objectives was to join the A-main, where all could be possible in final runs.
Unfortunately (you can’t imagine how I hate to start a sentence with that word after an ETS…), meteo and bad luck decided to give a break to the Patrick’s performance. Sure, meteo is the same for everybody, and is not an excuse. In our side, it just stopped us to reverse a very compromised situation after the lost of a qualification run.
Patrick made a very average Q1 (35th time), due to a motor in “end of life”, and changed it for Q2. Unfortunately, the burned motor in Q1 also distroyed the ESC, but he realized it only on the start in Q2… where he was only able to run 10 meters; and even if these 10 meters was the fastest of the event, it didn’t was sufficient to join the A-final !!
At this point, 2 good qualifications runs was necessary to keep a chance to join the A-main for him, while it was “almost ok” for his teammate Jacques Libar, who placed a good 10th time in Q2 (and a 18th time in Q1). But on Saturday, due to the weather (light rain, heavy rain; with sometimes medium rain and a bit of sun just to make us nervous for a few minutes); only a third round of qualification has been possible to run. Patrick ran a good Q3, and placed a very nice 5th time !!
Unfortunately (you know I dislike this word, and it’s the second time I have to use it today…), this very nice 5th time, which is totally unsufficant to join the A-main because it’s an unique good run, has been made just 0.1 second quicker than time of Jacques Libar; who also miss the A-main for 1 point, because Patrick did a better result. So, our team potential was to have a minimum of one car in A-finale, possibly two, and we have no one, what a kind of bad luck !!
During the finales, Jacques Libar won the two B-main runs with times similar to top-3 in A-finale, showing he had the potential to make something very good in A-main, while Patrick dominated first C-main. So, we are B-main and C-main winners ! Finally not so bad.
In modified, things have always been different for our team. Due to a so high level of racing, with professional drivers from all around the world, our objectives are for sure naturally lower than in ProStock, even if our car already made a A-main, exactly here in Luxembourg, with Léo Arnold two years ago. Reasonable target could be a B-main with a bit of luck, something we totally miss since some months !
This ETS was also the first official race of our new team driver Steven Weiss, who choose to join the team after one month and half of car testing on different tracks and conditions. Having a driver like Steven in a team is a great thing for the car development. Steven joined our key-drivers Cyril N’Diaye and Patrick Gassauer at this ETS round to prepare futur events in good conditions.
With the cancelling of a practice round, with only three qualification rounds, and the weather condition changes, we suffered a bit of a lack of training on this specific track, but placed good runs; with a 21th time for Cyril in Q3, 27th time for Steven also in Q3, and 28th time for Patrick in Q2. Not so bad, all our drivers have been able to join the top 30; in the highest level of the world. Of course, drivers who made training session on this track before the event have always a little advantage for the setup, but in normal condition it’s not something really decisive with our current objectives.
Teamwork has been great during that event. Our drivers collaborate to find setups, especially between Jacques and Patrick in Prostock, and between Steven and Cyril in Modified. Despite our incredible lack of luck in Prostock, team spirit remains very good; we just hope to make it better next time; we remains of course very motivated.
Next ETS event will be Slovakia, at Hudy Arena. We cross fingers !
Lionel Troyon – Team Manager
