In Qualifying Serpent tok the Top-3 at the 1t race in Dormagen
1. Lehmann
2. Pupke
3. Salven and sets new Dormagen lap record!
In the final Pupke won and a total of 5 Serpents in the final, and the majority of cars in the event. Pupke ran a mix of the Serpent 733 and 747 car, as the final 747 is not ready yet.
Full report:
Rene Püpke wins the first round of Western Championship at Dormagen.Michael Salven sets new lap record!
Last weekend 04.15.2012 the first round Western championship was held at the Track of MCK Dormagen.
Under good weather on Saturday could be trained at approximately 12 °.
The Serpent team showed on Saturday that it has been well prepared for the new season and made with good lap times clearly where it should go down.
On Sunday morning the track was wet cause of rain overnight.
The first qualifying run was then run on a wet track. Even under these conditions, the Serpent drivers, Püpke, Thiele and Lehmann found the leading edge in the rankings again.
The track dried out during the heats gradually decreases so that the times were getting faster.
The fourth and final qualification round on completely dry track Rene Püpke was the only one who was able to drive 18 laps to secure pole position.
With Rene Püpke, Benjamin Lehmann, Michael Salven, Daniel Thiele, Arndt Bernhardt, Björn Hartlage and Julien Cevani seven Serpent driver could directly qualify for the semifinals.
In the first semi-final Benjamin Lehmann, Arndt Bernhardt and Lucien Zens could secure by consistent and fast lap times, a place in the final.
In the second semi-final it started right rapidly. Rene Püpke and Michael Salven could be directly contrasted with the rest of the field. Michael had to stop cause of a technical Problems.
Rene won the 20 minutes semi-final with two laps ahead.
Michael came back into the race and set a new lap record of 16,4sec with the 747 prototype (old record 16,7). Unfortunately, the good lap times helped not for Michael to move up after his Problem in the final.
Nevertheless, it managed a total of 5 Serpent driver from the semi-finals in the final.
The final started well for the Serpent drivers. Rene Püpke could use his pole position well and sat down in the early rounds already from the rest of the field.
After about seven minutes the final stopped as a result of a power failure in the timing.
After a break of 30 minutes the final restarted.
The second start was similarly good. At the beginning the pressure was quite high on Rene.
Rene proved but a cool head and would not give his lead.
Shortly before the end of the race Rene run out of fuel. With the engine running again Rene was on 5th place.
About five minutes before the end the drivers ahead of him got the first problems with their tires due to the high tire wear. But Rene’s lap times were consistent and quick to the end and he could bring back the lead.
Final result was as follows:
1. Rene Püpke (Serpent 733 TE with 747 suspension parts)
2. Sebastian Bürge
3. Andreas Weyhoven
4. Benjamin Lehmann (Serpent 733 TE)
5. Arndt Bernhardt (Serpent 733 TE)
6. Bernd Rausch
7. Lucien Zens (Serpent 733 TE)
8. Carsten Diekmann
9. Daniel Toenessen
10. Bjorn Hartlage (Serpent 733 TE)
All in all it was a good weekend for the Serpent drivers. Michael could show the potential of the new 747 and Rene also showed by winning the race with the geometry of the new 747 that the new car is equipped well for the coming season.
Finally, a big thanks to Serpent and 2-speed for the support.
My set-up: 733 te-15.4.12-dormagen-sklauf1-Rene
Rene Püpke
More details: www.nitro-west.de