Groskamp takes super close Q1 at ENS Finale
Jilles Groskamp claimed a super close opening qualifier at the Season Finale of the Euro Nitro Series in Ettlingen Germany. Racing for the newly crowned champions Infinity, the 2019 1:10 Champion Teemu Leino opting to focus on 1:8 this weekend, Groskamp swapped the lead at the top of the timing screens each lap with Shepherd’s Thilo Tödtmann, with the former champion just doing enough on the final lap to take it by 0.054 of a second. With rain on the horizon for Sunday forcing an early start to qualifying, all four rounds to be run today, behind Groskamp & Tödtmann it was practice Top Seed Melvin Diekmann who completed the Top 3, 1.3-seconds further back, just ahead of Shepherd team-mate Patrick Nähr. Second fastest in practice, Infinity’s young Dutch talent Milan Holthuis posted the 5th fastest qualifying time.
‘It was close. I knew from practice Thilo was going to be fast’, was Groskamp’s reaction to Q1. The Dutch ace continued, ‘we changed the whole set-up for the first round (of qualifying) and it was a big step forward. We had struggled in practice’. Fourth fastest in seeding, he said, ‘the set-up is still not perfect but it is the best set-up we have ran so far. I’m happy to take the first round but we have to change something to make it faster for the next one’. Asked what he wanted to improve he replied, ‘it is still a bit tricky to drive especially at the end of the straight. The balance is ok but we could do with finding a bit more stability’.
Summing up the first of the four scheduled qualifiers, Tödtmann said, ‘It was OK. Everything went as planned except for two small mistakes on the penultimate lap which cost me the TQ’. Somewhat a home track for the Shepherd team whose base is not too far away, the German continued, ‘It’s impossible to test here outside of a big race weekend because the traction is so low but you could say I like this track’. Asked about Q2, he said, ‘I will go with everything the same. Everyone is so close as always on this track that tomorrow (Finals day) will be about tyre wear and fuel consumption which I’m sure Jilles is working on already’.
Diekmann said, ‘I was a bit nervous for the first 3-laps but then I got into a flow. I lacked steering at the start but it got better as the run went on but in the last minute I had too much steering which made the car very tricky to drive’. Asked how he hope the rectify this issue for Q2, the German responded, ‘we will try a harder roll bar in the rear and hope this improves things’.
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