High level RC car racing at Arena33
The third round of ETS Season #15 was a huge success. With 190 entries, it was another strong turnout and the ETS crew around Uwe Rheinard and Scotty Ernst did what they are best at: Organizing great weekends of RC racing! Against the forecast, the weather was almost on point for the whole weekend. Drivers only faced a quick shower on Friday morning.
Team and driver performances
Now it is time to review the race results of the top drivers and teams at ETS Season #15 2022/23. We saw most of the top drivers form RD1 and RD2 on track with some others joining again. Let`s read what the teams and drivers achieved at Arena33 in Germany!
Matrix Modified and Awesomatix Pro Stock
Rheinard finally wins in Modified while Mächler defends Pro Stock championship lead
Awesomatix was the brand of the weekend. The team dominated all touring car classes, claimed 5 pole positions and 5 overall wins. That was the strongest, and most dominant performance we have ever seen at the ETS from one brand. Team manager Max Mächler was very proud and happy in his social media postings after the race, and who can blame him for that 😊. He was happy about still being the championship leader in the Awesomatix ProStock class, but he was even more delighted about the results of his team drivers. With six cars in the Pro Stock A-Main, and another three cars in the Matrix Modified A-Main the Awesomatix A800MMX was the car of choice for 40% of the top drivers in both A-Mains in Andernach.
Marc Rheinard found his way back to winning in the Matrix Modified class again and took maximum points for the championship which is still wide open after we saw three different winners at the first three races (Prümper, Krapp, Rheinard) of the current season. Rheinard is now sitting in second behind Krapp in the rankings (tied on points with Völker)!
A perfect momentum for Rheinard to get back into a winning rhythm, especially when we keep in mind that the IFMAR worlds in Italy is only three weeks away from us. Rheinard`s teammate Lucas Urbain also showed an amazing performance at Arena33 where he was top seed for qualifying after practice. In the end, Lucas finished sixth after not getting everything together during the race. But pace wise he was right there. Michele Manzo made the bump-up from the B-Main and was the third Awesomatix driver in the Modified A-Main.
In the ProStock class, Mächler won ahead of reigning champion and Awesomatix teammate Simon Lauter. Both showed great racing in the finals where they had been able to hold off a hard challenging Xray driver Jan Ratheisky. Alex Kunkler finished fourth overall in his last race for Awesomatix, and Olivier Bultynck (8th), Louis Kretschmer (9th), and Frederik Mikkelsen (11th) completed the top result for Awesomatix at the German ETS. Let´s see how the team will do at the next ETS in Luxembourg. Right now, it is hard to imagine that they will lose performance on the way!
Double podium in Modified, double A-Main in Pro Stock – the BD11 is on the run!
Team Yokomo was the surprise of the season so far. Nobody really expected Yannic Prümper and Christopher Krapp to win the first two races in the Netherlands and in Austria. As the Arena33 racetrack is completely different when we compare it with Apeldoorn and Aigen-Schlägl, people had been very interested to find out how the BD11 would perform at the flat, and very smooth asphalt in Andernach. And the BD11 did amazingly well again.
Yannic Prümper and Christopher Krapp had been right on pace from the start of practice, and Prümper only missed the overall TQ by a very small margin to Rheinard. Prümper and Krapp started from second and third into the finals and finished in the same order behind the race winner. They missed just a little bit this weekend, but their double podium finish was never in danger during the triple A-Mains. Enrico Jung had a strong qualifying session as well and booked 6th on the grid, which he only lost (back to P9) because of a controversial time penalty after leaving the track. Frederik Hovgaard bumped up into the A-Main and showed that he can be the desired reinforcement for Enrico Jung in the Awesomatix ProStock class.
Overall, the Yokomo team made a very smart and strong impression again, and now we can be pretty sure that Krapp and Prümper will fight for the overall title until the very end of the season. The team will also travel to Italy for the IFMAR worlds in September to show the strength of the BD11 on the Gubbio track!
Völker fourth overall in Modified after average weekend while best Mugen driver finishes P15 in ProStock
Last season, the Arena33 was in the hands of Mugen Seiki`s Ronald Völker. He won the first two races of the season with his MTC2 in Andernach, and nobody was able to challenge him seriously for these wins. This time, the expectations to Mugen and Völker had been the same. All eyes had been on a fight between Rheinard and Völker, as they finished first and second at the German nationals two weeks earlier. But for some reason, Völker was not on pace for winning the race all weekend long. His car looked fine on track but just missed a little bit of corner speed in the slower sections of the track.
Völker and his mechanic Robert Pietsch tried different setups to extract more performance from their car, but in the end Völker qualified only fifth on the grid. In the finals, he was able to improve up to fourth after he made two great passes on Xray`s Marco Kaufmann who started right ahead of Völker. In the first A-Main it was a sensational and risky pass at full throttle on the main straight, and in A3 the Mugen driver overtook Kaufmann at the slowest part of the track – in the tight centre chicane. It was great to watch and Völker got some extra applause for that but in the end, he was not very satisfied with the overall outcome of the weekend.
Mugen Seiki teammate Eric Dankel qualified for the A-Main for a sixth time in a row now and scored his best ETS overall result since years with P7 overall. Eric had some amazing fights with Ratheisky, Orlowski, and Urbain in the finals and showed that he is in a great form.
In the Awesomatix ProStock class, Mugen Seiki is still in need of a top driver and potential and frequent A-Main contender. No MTC2 car was in the A-Main while the best Mugen Drivers finished in the B-Main with Nicolas Delisé (15th), youngster Maximilian Unterschütz (16th), and Kevin Sparbier (17th). Let`s see if the team can improve at the next race in Luxembourg. Mugen Designer Robert Pietsch and Ronald Völker will now start to prepare for the upcoming IFMAR world championships in Italy where they want to fight for the title for sure!
Ratheisky with strong podium finish in Pro Stock but Xray far away from winning in Modified
In the Awesomatix ProStock class, Jan Ratheisky was in contention again after missing out the last couple of ETS races due to different reasons. Jan was immediately back on pace, and he won the third round of qualifying with his Xray X4. He started behind the Awesomatix duo of Lauter and Mächler, and it looked like his car had the pace to win the race as well. But as Jan was all on his own out front (Awesomatix driver Kunkler started from P4 behind him), he had no chance to win against the Awesomatix team in Andernach. But it was great to see Jan`s incredible driving skills on track and he showed that the Xray car can fight for the win. The last win for Xray happened at Arena33 last summer when Alexandre Duchet won RD1 and RD2 of the last season. Since then, we saw six races without an Xray win in the ProStock class at the ETS. A series which we never saw before from Xray in the history of the Euro Touring Series until today. Lukas Ellerbrock drove the second Xray car in the A-Main and finished sixth overall. He is a very reliable driver for Xray with constant A-Main appearances at the ETS.
In the Matrix Modified class, Marco Kaufmann was the “hot shot” for Xray at Arena33. Marco had a great qualifying and started from fourth place on the grid. He finished sixth overall after Völker passed him two times in a world class way, but Marco can be very proud of his performance all weekend long. Jan Ratheisky and Patrick Gollner made it into the big show too, and the Xray team had a solid number of three cars in the Matrix Modified A-Main. But as in ProStock – a win seems to be far away right now with Xray not sending Bruno Coelho and Alex Hagberg to the races this season. Xray, Hagberg, and Coelho are fully focused on the IFMAR world championships in Italy where they want nothing else than winning the biggest title in 1:10 scale electric touring car racing.
Orlowski is fast as soon as he picks up a radio
Schumacher factory driver Michal Orlowski was at Arena33 with his Mi8 touring car and had the assistance of engineer Andy Murray and his father on his side. Michal was very fast all weekend and was seventh after practice, seventh after qualifying, and eight overall in the Matrix Modified class. His pace sometimes was even better that the overall result, but in the end, he can be proud of himself and the Schumacher car. Being all alone at such a big race is always difficult as you must do all the setup work alone on track, but Michal is such a good driver, and he did pretty well out there. He will race at the worlds in Italy too, and it wouldn`t be a surprise to see him in the A-Main there for Schumacher.
Another ProStock A-Main for Serpent and Sparbier
The new Serpent car is not playing a big role right now in the Modified class as Serpent has no top Modified driver competing at the ETS now. But in the Awesomatix ProStock class, it was once again Sören Sparbier who drove into the A-Main with the new Serpent Medius X20`23. Sören made a big step forward in the last year and took a strong seventh place overall after only starting tenth on the grid. Let`s see if he will get some team members in the future to score even better results for Serpent!
Hobbywing Frontwheel
Championship leader Olsen with a weekend to forget, while fabulous Freddy Südhoff putting on a show
In the Hobbywing Frontwheel class, we saw Steven Olsen having a “bad” weekend for his standards. The championship leader didn`t get into the groove this time at Arena33. He only qualified 10th on the grid and was able to recover a little bit in the finals finishing 7th in the end. Not the result Olsen had hoped for, but he is still on top of the board in the overall standings and can fight for the title until the end of the season. Stefan Schulz, who was so dominant at RD2 in Austria, struggled also during the weekend and walked away from Arena33 with a fifth place in his bag.
As the two top drivers of the class had some problems, it was the show of Freddy Südhoff, Sören Sparbier, Roman Borschel, and Kevin Sparbier out front. Südhoff returned to RC racing after not touching a radio for two years and he had some amazing nose to tail fights with the other guys around him. Freddy drove a perfect race with his loan Awesomatix A800FX Evo, and his beautiful body shell in the “Castrol Honda” design. Sören Sparbier was on the same pace with his Serpent car and Roman Borschel (Awesomatix) and Kevin Sparbier (Mugen Seiki) had also been able to match the lap times of Südhoff. We saw amazing fights in all A-Mains and the FWD class once again showed why so many people are loving these cars so much. There was no car or manufacturer which seemed to have a clear advantage over another, it all came down to the driver`s performance on track.
ToniSport 40+ Masters
Close battles in the Master`s class as Stankowitz takes first big win of his career
The ToniSport 40+ Masters class is the very competitive racing class for drivers with the age of 40+ at the ETS. A perfect class for many very experienced and fast onroad racers. This time, it was the weekend of Manuel Stankowitz. He was very close to winning for a several times in the last 2 years, and last weekend everything came together for him. He was able to start from pole position and sealed the deal with a win in A1 and A3. His Awesomatix A800MMX performed great in combination with the new Protoform P63 body, and Stankowitz was very delighted and exhausted when he recognized that he had just won hie first ETS after the third final.
Behind Stankowitz, the Xray duo of Caspar Morgen (2nd) and Mirco Thalheimer (3rd) joined him on the podium after some good battles on track. Caspar was able to win A2 when Stankowitz crashed and had a serious shot for the win when A3 was on the line, a great result for Morgen. Mirco Thalheimer secured his second podium in a row after finishing second in Austria.
For Patrick Beck (ETS race reporter), it was the first time he raced in the Master`s class. He told us that the switch from Modified to 17.5 was not easy for him without any practice, but he was also happy with his result beside working on the computer for most of the time during the weekend. His teammates cared about his car, and he just drove – not a bad result to finish fourth. Let`s see what he can do with his Mugen Seiki MTC2 in the next races.
For championship leader Toni Mateo, it was a weekend to forget. He had some trouble in qualifying and in the finals and finished only in sixth position. He is still on top in the championship, but Stankowitz is only two points behind and will try to take over the lead until the end of the season.
Car wise, we saw 7 Awesomatix A800MMX cars on the grid, mixed up by three Xray X4 (Mirco Thalheimer, Caspar Morgen, Flavio Paladin) and one Mugen Seiki MTC2 (Patrick Beck).
Scorpion Formula
Kölbel still leading the championship with third place finish behind the epic battle of Stiebler and Ratheisky
In the Scorpion Formula class, Jan Ratheisky stamped some authority on the class he dominated for many years. He wasn`t racing at the last three ETS races, and other drivers like Luke Lee, René Kölbel, and Andreas Stiebler all won their first ETS races in the absence of Ratheisky. Everybody was excited about the race and the drivers didn`t disappoint the crowd around the trach and in front of the live streams. Ratheisky, Stiebler, and Kölbel qualified from first to third on the grid and we saw two outstanding Formula A-Mains between Ratheisky and Stiebler. It was the new Xray X1-23 against the Schumacher Icon2, and Andreas was pushing Jan around the track in a very impressive and respectful way. Ratheisky celebrated a well-deserved race win and Andreas Stiebler was happy because of the great show they delivered on track.
The A-Main of the Scorpion Formula class was mostly in the hands of Xray with six cars on the grid. The rest was a mix of Schumacher, Exotek, and Libar Engineering. It seems that all drivers are now dealing better and better with the foam tires which is simply great to see!
Orca 17.5 Stock
Imperfect weekend for Reile and Pöhlmann as Donath, Fernandez, and Winkler produced the show
Dominik Reile and Daniel Pöhlmann (both with Awesomatix A800MMX) are racing very close with each other at the ETS since many years – mostly for positions on the podium. At ETS RD3 in Andernach, they finished right behind each other again, but only in seventh (Reile), and eight (Pöhlmann) position. Both drivers had a weekend to forget, and we can be pretty sure about this race being one their throw out results in the championship. Reile is still leading the championship, but his margin over new second placed Jasmin Donath is at ONE point only. Daniel Pöhlmann is sitting in third place, but he is already some points behind the leading duo. Pöhlmann will need a TQ and win in one of the next races if he likes to get back into the fight for the title again.
With Reile and Pöhlmann struggling during the weekend, the show was all about TQ Alvaro Fernandez from Gran Canaria, and Jasmin Donath and Joshua Winkler from Germany. Alvaro quickly found a good rhythm on the track which has a similar layout to his home track in Telde (Gran Canaria). He was able to secure himself the pole position in qualifying, with Joshua Winkler and Jasmin Donath lining up right behind him. Alvaro Fernandez had some real bad luck in the finals. In the first leg he got a small touch from Winkler and was out of contention, in the second run he made a huge mistake all by himself and this denied him the overall win in Andernach.
The rest is history: Jasmin Donath celebrated her first ever ETS win in front of Joshua Winkler, who also drove a brilliant race. It was awesome to see these young teenagers going for it, especially Jasmin Donath`s defensive driving against Dominik Reile in A1 was worth the money 😊
Congratulations to all A-Main drivers of our Orca 17.5 Stock class – you did awesome!
We saw eight (!) Awesomatix A800MMX cars in the A-Main, together with one Tamiya TRF 420X (Dominik Ruf), a Serpent Medius X20-23 (Christian Lütjen), and a Mugen Seiki MTC2 in the hands of Niclas Storm.
Next stop for the ETS is RD4 at LMCC Luxembourg
The ETS circus will meet again from 22. – 25. September 2022 at the amazing track in Luxembourg. The race will take place just one week after the IFMAR worlds in Gubbio/Italy. The Euro Touring Series would like to take the chance to wish all participants from the ETS family the best of luck and a great time at the Gubbio track. Enjoy the worlds and go for it. We will see us in Luxembourg for ETS RD4 Season #15 2022/23.
Uwe, Scotty, and the whole ETS crew!
If you like to sign up for ETS RD4 in Luxembourg, just click here:
Pictures: RC-Cars-Pics (Chris Sandner)
