Tire choice decides duel Aerts and Vanthourenhout: “Rain had an influence”
Sunday 16 January 2022 at 16:46
Toon Aerts and Michael Vanthourenhout were entangled in a battle for second place in the Flamanville World Cup. That prize eventually went to Aerts, who had the best tire choice in the final phase and thus shook off Vanthourenhout. “I was able to make a difference there”, Aerts looks back.
The course in Normandy was smooth in the initial phase, but it dried up well. “I started on the grifo, but in the corners it was slippery and I sometimes missed some grip,” says the Baloise Trek Lions leader. Finally, he heard that Vanthourenhout was being encouraged to change tires when it became slippery again in the final phase. Aerts had already anticipated that. “I was able to go full throttle on the slippery sections and make a difference there.”
Vanthourenhout saw it happen. “I think it started to rain on the penultimate lap. That did affect the course and I needed rhinos”, he explains. “Toon put me under pressure and that’s why I couldn’t change, but then – half a lap later – he was too far away to overtake him. I should have changed immediately, but didn’t have enough surplus. I chose to wait, although I think this was the highest I could get out of it.”
On the limit
The win in Flamanville went to Eli Iserbyt, Vanthourenhout’s teammate at Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal. But there was no team tactics. “I drove against my limit,” says Vanthourenhout. “I let Eli drive away for a while, but Toon couldn’t close it. Then I focused on second place and I just didn’t manage to do that.”
Aerts came in second and hopes to grow towards the World Cup, which is already in two weeks. “I trained a lot on content this week and not very much on intensity. After the Christmas period I did miss some content. I’ve been doing longer workouts, so I was less explosive in the early stages. But in the end it went well. Now I have another week of cross-specific training planned and then we’ll see how I am for the World Cup next week.”
