The outdoor portion of ETS Season #17 is done and dusted after we had another great event last weekend at “Mini Circuit Ville de Luxembourg” which is one of the most iconic tracks for onroad rc racing in the world. The ETS circus will rest a bit now as the next race is scheduled for the end of January 2025 at the next famous place – DAUN…. Before we send you into the autumn break, we like to share our 5 things we have learned during ETS RD3 in Luxembourg with you!
1) Laguna Seca Corkscrew – made for pure racing and nice passes
The whole track in Luxembourg is amazing. Beautiful layout, super fast and steep left turn after the straight, a nice and flowing infield section with the beautiful curbs painted in luxembg colours, all ending with the entry into the most famous corner in the world of racing – the Laguna Seca Corkscrew section.
Drivers arrive at the entry of Laguna Seca after going full power on the short straight in front of the driver`s stand. Hitting the entry with the right speed is super important as the cars are getting unloaded for a short time when diving down the hill into the compression before turnign right and going uphill again. This section is a key to success in Luxembourg as you can simply gain or loose so much laptime there.
When the cars arrive on top of the hill, they get unloaded again when going down onto the straightway. Drivers just need to get the perfect feeling of how much they can attack the track , and when and where they just need to let the car “doing stuff by itself” before accelerating again.
No matter how difficult this part of the track is, some drivers didn`t fear the risk of riding an attack to the car in front of them. We saw some epic passes over the weekend with the best ones (we noticed) coming from Michel Zierold, Mark Valent, and Jacques Libar. Michel Zierold overtook David Ehrbar with a ball move going uphill in the last lap of A2 in the 40+ Masters class. Mark Valent did the same to Jacques Libar in A3 of ther FWD class to only lose the position again to Libar who was putting on a nice counter on Valent some laps later.
2) Steel chassis are coming into vogue
Since a couple of races, we can see some factory drivers using STEEL chassis plates on their touring cars. Yes, you read that right – STEEL!
Until now, there are no production chassis available to the public as the teams are still testing to find out about the perfect dimensions of these chassis plates in case of thickness (flex) and overall weight.
What can be the benefit of a steel chassis? Well, as we expect them to be around 50% heavier than for example an alloy chassis (mostly around 100g), the center of gravity goes down a lot resulting in more corner speed and a better handling on track. Will be interesting to see how much of a difference it will make on carpet.
However, teams also have to find out which screws to use with the thin steel plates. The same counts for the material and the shape of the topdecks combined with the steel chassis to get the flex right. Everythign will take a moment to get released to the market but we can expect STEEL CHASSIS in hobby shops soon 🙂
3) Hara proves he is still world class with making the A-Main on super challenging track
There is no doubt that Atsushi Hara is one of the greatest drivers of all time. The two time IFMAR world champion, multiple FEMCA and Japanese champion, as well as record TITC race winner did not race a lot in the last years when he was with Infinity.
Since he is running Cayote electronics and Awesomatix cars now, Hara was at all three ETS races of the current season and got up to speed race by race.
Atsushi was in the front of the B-Main in Apeldoorn and Aigen, and always had the pace for the A-Main. Last weekend, he got the job done in qualifying and lined up seventh on the grid for the big show.
Hara finished sixth overall which made him the best driver who had not practiced on the very challenging Luxembourg track in the weeks before the event. A huge accomplishment for Atsushi Hara who is still a star of our sport and a fan favourite wherever he goes. Thanks for racing at the ETS Atsushi!
4) Driver of the weekend – Lukas Ellerbrock
Sometimes it is not easy to pick a “Driver Of The Weekend” -this time it was! Awesomatix driver Lukas Ellerbrock was the man of the weekend with a TQ and win in the Awesomatix Pro Stock class while also finishing P9 in the A-Main of the Modified class.
Lukas had his rear view mirrors full of his teammates Louis Kretschmer and Ollie Bultynck in each and every second of Pro Stock A1 and A2 and simply drove a perfect race. He never gave his competitors a chance for the win – what a great performance!
Ellerbrock also made his first Modified A-Main at the ETS in Luxembourg fighting with the top dogs of the sport in the finals. All in all a perfect weekend for Lukas Ellerbrock and his great performance earns him the “Driver Of The Weekend” honours this time. Well done Lukas, it was a pleasure to watch you on track at ETS RD3.
5) Racer`s LOVE the “Mini Circuit Ville de Luxembourg”
Last but not least, we like to thank the LMCC Luxembourg for hosting us. The club did a very nice job preparing everything perfectly, and supporting us in the best possible way. The atmosphere was always nice and friendly, even the rain could not take the fact away that the LMCC Luxembourg is having one of the greatest racetracks in the world.
For sure, the pit area can be a little tight and windy sometimes, but all racers highlighted the track and how amazing it is to race on it. We hope that we can come back next year to see cars going into laguna seca again 🙂
