Team Magic driver Rob Janssen participated to the second round of Dutch Nationals. He obtained the pole position and finished on final second place.
Original report from Rob Janssen:
For round 2 of our Nationals we went to the very small track of HFCC. Well knowns as a difficult circuit with a few fast local drivers. So i prepared for a challenging weekend ! As weather forecasts were not very good I prepared both my cars, one for the rain and one for dry.
On Saturday the weather was ok, so it was possible to make a few laps on a dry track. The car felt ok and balance seems to be good but the overall grip on the car was not that good. Lot of local drivers were a lot faster. When switching to a different set of tires I noticed it was a lot better but not there yet. I tried a lot such as, different shock oils, diff oils, front diff & spool, different roll centres, other tire additive, etc. I think almost everything ! At the end of the day the gap to the local drivers was a little less.
On Sunday I arrived on a wet track and pulled out my rain car. It worked really well so I was able to do a clean TQ run in the wet. Unfortunately when the track became more dry I noticed it would be hard to defend my first position.
Final 1 was half wet / half dry and therefore very hard to drive. I lost my first position in the long oval corner at the end of the straight by going to wide almost in the grass. When entering the dry zone the car took grip to the inside of the corner and I hit someone which costed me some more time. I was able to finish in second place.
Final 2 was 90% dry. But it became a difficult and at the same time terrible run as local ace Robert Krens was faster then me and came close to me very fast. I defended my place as much as possible by keeping my lines, despite that it resulted in being hit from behind like 8 or 9 times by him. This costed so much time that we were passed by another driver and at the end I came in third behind Robert in second. As far as I can think back for me it was the most terrible final ever.
Just 5 minutes before final 3 it started raining again so everybody last minute changed to rain cars and tires. I also did that but for this final it for sure was Sybrand de Boer who was the most fast car. I lost some time by drifting and sliding to much and he passed by and took the lead to the end. I came in second.
At the end of the day I was able to climb the podium for second. For sure I’m happy with the weekend as i get to know more about the car and I was able to make some good points for the Nationals Series. I’m still the leader in the competition and made the gap to nr. 2 slightly bigger. The next round is in Deventer, a track I really like and normally I do well there 😉 !
Overall Results:
1. Robert Krens
2. Rob Janssen – Team Magic E4RS III Plus / HRC Racing
3. De Boer Sybrand
4. Rick van den Akker
5. Fokke Groen
6. Tim Streefkerk
7. Martijn Spaans
8. Fons Stabel
9. Jeroen Streefkerk
10. Marco Messer
