Back on pace – Rheinard wins Q3 from Orlowski, Coelho, and Völker. Which Awesomatix car will claim the pole position?
After Lucas Urbain took the win in Q1 and Q2 on Friday, all eyes had been on him as most spectators expected him to seal the overall TQ already in Q3. When the top heat started, it was the Mugen of Ronald Völker popping up on top of the board after they made some massive setup changes to the car overnight. Völker was leading ahead of Coelho, Orlowski, Urbain, and Rheinard in the first minute of the race. In the third lap, Lucas Urbain made a mistake in the Laguna Seca section and dropped all the way back to the end of the field.
At around 2:30 minutes in the race, Marc Rheinard found himself on top of the field – just a few hundreds ahead of Orlowski, Coelho, and Völker. The Awesomatix driver also found some good pace overnight and was able to hold off Michal Orlowski (hot lap 16.596) till the end – by the gap of ONLY 0.007 seconds. Bruno Coelho took third for the round ahead of Völker who lost one second (and P3) when he rolled his MTC-3 in the downslope section of the corkscrew.
The final result in Q3 was Rheinard, Orlowski, Coelho, Völker, Sparbier (out of the b-sort), Ronnefalk, Hagberg, Dankel, and Lauter. As Marc Rheinard posted the fastest overall run so far in Q3, the fight for the overall pole position is still alive and will be on the line in Q4 between the Awesomatix duo Lucas Urbain and Marc Rheinard.
Ellerbrock takes Saturday morning Q3 – TQ wide open!
After being a bit on the back foot yesterday, our current Pro Stock champion Lukas Ellerbrock was able to TQ the third round of qualifying with his Nosram powered Awesomatix A800RR. Ellerbrock was on a fresh set of tires in Q3 and could win the heat by a gap of 0.5 seconds over Danish ace Jesper Rasmussen and Louis Kretschmer.
Jan Ratheisky and Jacques Libar completed the top 5 and the decision for the overall TQ was shifted to Q4.Tim Benson had the fastest run so far, followed by Ellerbrock and Bultynck – all set for a showdown in the last round of Pro Stock qualifying!
Borschel claims FWD pole position in ultra-close Q3
The third round of FWD qualifying took place on early Saturday morning and it was once again Roman Borschel who was able to win the top heat. But the race was tough and super-close when the top 6 drivers finished the race within one second (!) after the four-minute run. Phil Langner took second place and was only 0.142 seconds behind Borschel with Max Weffers another tenth behind in third spot.
Home-town boy Jacques Libar finished fourth ahead of Matthieu Dambrine (fastest lap of the heat 24.114) and Cedric Gridelet. With three out of three, Roman Borschel already sealed the top qualifying position and will start from the sweet spot into the finals. The fight for the positions behind is still going on and Q4 will tell more about the starting grid for the triple A-Mains!
Ehrbar, Arts, and Mateo on top of Q3
David Ehrbar posted his first TQ run of the weekend when he won Q3 by a gap of 1.1 seconds from Q2 winner Ronald Arts, and Toni Mateo. Torsten Baggendorf and Mirco Thalheimer took fourth and fifth and the battle for the pole position is now all about Ehrbar, Stocker, and Arts in the last and upcoming fourth round of 40+ Masters qualifying. With Alexander Stocker`s time from Q1 being the fastest, he probably has the best shot for the TQ here at ETS RD3 in Luxembourg!
Jensen becomes third TQ of the weekend
Kristian Jensen won the third Hobbywing 21.5 Stock qualifying round and is now back in the fight for the best starting position on the grid. The Danish racer won Q3 by half a second from Cedric Gridelet, Aurelien Threhout, Elena Fuchs, and David Reip. Ahead of Q4, we now have three racers with a chance to TQ the event. Threhout, Gridelet, and Jensen will battle it out!
Mighty Ehrbar dominates Formula Q3
After Ehrbar and Stiebler had both taken a round of qualifying on Friday, it was clear that the decision for the pole was going down to Q4. When Q3 started in the morning, Andreas Stiebler was having another good run with his Schumacher car on track. Michal Wojcik was following him within a couple of tenths in the first two minutes until David Ehrbar took the lead in the closing stages of the race when he was hammering down some impressive lap times!
Ehrbar`s fastest lap (19.483) was almost three tenths faster compared to all the others and Xray driver Ehrbar managed to win Q3 by 0.1 ahead of Andreas Stiebler (Schumacher), Jitse Miedema (Fenix), Luka Jovicic, and Jacques Libar. Before the deciding last qualifier, David Ehrbar had the best chance to TQ the event as he was the only driver with a 13-lap run on the score card so far!
