Charity Race Italy 2011 <ETS Rd 2 Warm Up>

Charity Race Italy 2011 <ETS Rd 2 Warm Up>
Date: 10-11.12.2011
Location: Scandiano, Italy

It was an unofficial ETS Rd 2 Warm Up race. The layout looked fantastic, technical but fast.

Philip Tschupp arrived the track on Saturday morning. His first run with his T.O.P. Photon EX prototype felt good.
The carpet has a lot of grip, but the characteristics was different from the others. In the second run he changed a few things. The car felt more consistent. His third and fourth runs were timed practice. He changed ball diff and spool with geardiff in first timed practice and in the second he changed springs. Both changes were a big step forward and his lap times were about the same as the Italian frontrunners.

After practice Philip with his Photon EX took the fourth position. In front was Martini Francesos Xray followed by two other Italian Xray drivers. In the first qualifier Philip used old tires, which was the wrong decision. In fourth and fifth lap he had traction roll at the end of straight. He lost some and ended in the third position. In the second qualifier he had problems with gear and couldn't finish it. His last chance to get a good start position for the finals was the third qualifier run. The car felt perfect. He could push really hard and had no traffic. But two other Italian driver and Sandro Kuriger also had a great run. After two minutes Sandro was hit by another car and lost some seconds. It was a battle between Philip, Francesco and Diego Macchioni. At the end of the race Philip got a lot of traffic and had to overtake some cars. But he won the final qualifier run and made the best lap time too. Only 0.5s behind him was Francesco with his Xray on second position and one second behind him it was Diego on the third position.

In the first final Philip had less steering and got hard pressured by Franceso and Diego. He had to block in every corner until Francesco made a mistake. Then it was Diego who put Philip under pressure. It was a very close race until Diego touched a curb and lost control of his car, so there was a gap between Philip and the other two local drivers. He holds his lead all the way to the finish line followed by Diego and Francesco. In the second final Philip changed his tire treatment and had much more steering. He could hold a little gap between his and Diegos car. After a few minutes the Italian Champion closed up to the Swiss driver, Philip. They had a great battle but in the end it was Philip Tschupp who won the final with his T.O.P. Photon EX prototype.