A busy weekend for Nicolas Schatz with the Chanaz, Col St Pierre and Abreschviller hill-climbs! Discover his impressions :
Chanaz / Col St Pierre : On April 13th, I went to the Chanaz hillclimb (non-championship) in order to gain some kilometres. Unfortunately, I was the victim of a low speed crash which caused a lot of damage to the car. In a few days we managed to get it back in working order (many thanks to all the people who helped me) to compete in the Col St-Pierre race. I was leading in the rain in the first practice session and in the second session I was second to the F3000 (some cars started in the dry and we started in the wet). The race was stressful as the weather was very threatening with showers making some sections wet. At the end of the first two rounds of the race I was second overall, very close to the first. I finally finished third, victim of fuel pressure problems.
We will check the fuel system to be at the top from Abreschviller, we work in parallel at each race on the settings to improve our performance level.
I am really satisfied to have started this championship with two podiums that put me in third place in the championship.
Abreschiviller : On April 25th and 26th, we were in Lorraine to compete in the 3rd round of the championship : the Abreschviller hill climb. A very short (less than 50 seconds uphill) and very fast (more than 240 km/h in top speed) atypical track with only 6 turns. It is therefore a run where you need 0 fault to be well classified and the gaps between the drivers are often very small. Luckily we had great weather with sunshine and good temperature.
Practice : At the end of the 2 practice heats I finished 4th overall, we mainly worked on the chassis to erase the oversteer tendency of the car.
Race : During the first heat I started with second hand tyres and without heating blanket and after a nice climb I did the 2nd scratch time. During the second race I decided to put on 4 new tyres and to heat them up. Very motivated I started with the knife between my teeth but after a great start I attacked the first corner with a bit of optimism finishing it by licking the safety rail (without gravity) but the climb is ruined, despite that I realize a slower time of only one tenth. So for the last run I decided to keep a margin in this first turn but I realize almost the same time to the nearest thousandth!
In the end I finished 4th overall, 2 tenths behind Lionel REGAL in 3rd place, 3 tenths behind Fabien FRANTZ in 2nd place and almost 1 second behind Sébastien PETIT in 1st place. In the championship I'm 3rd on equal points with 4th Cyril FRANTZ.
I'm a bit disappointed not to have managed to improve in the last race because I think the podium was within my reach; but the positive points are that the car worked well, I'm satisfied with the behaviour, we still end up in the car of the leading cars
Next event: La Pommeraye hillclimb in the north west of France, a fast race with a great rolling track.
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