Champion Volker heads practice at ETS season opener
Defending champion Ronald Volker has set the pace in the opening timed practice at the season opener of the 2011/12 Yokomo Euro Touring Series, the Yokomo ace fastest over three laps from his great rival and last season’s runner-up Marc Rheinard with Xray’s Alexander Hagberg third fastest.
The start of the fifth season of the ETS, the 6-round series has moved away from Kastellaun, it traditional opening event, to an all new and bigger venue in Muelheim-Kaerlich near Koblenz where almost three hundred racers from around the globe have descended for the weekend. Featuring a track designed by Spanish racer Toni Mateo, who will host the third round of the series in Gran Canary in March, the track looks like a permament track thanks to the use of black carpet. Featuring the main straight directly in front of the rostrum, the layout is coming in for a lot of praise from drivers.
As defending champions Yokomo have come to the opening race here in Germany with a huge presence including two interesting new signings. Joining Volker, Yannic Prumper, who came on strong in the second half of last season to finish third overall, and 1:12 World Champion Naoto Matsukura, who took his first big international touring car win earlier this month at the IIC in Las Vegas are Eric Dankel and Adrian Bersten. Both former Xray drivers Dankel’s move comes following a difference of opinion with his former team and his disillusionment with the tyre additive issues that have dogged onroad nitro racing this year. One of nitro racing’s leading international drivers, the German said his focus is now on electric racing where he says the ETS has created a very fair and competitive environment in which to race. Fitting in the opening two rounds of last season’s ETS around his World Championship nitro commitments Dankel went on to dominate in Pro stock but is back this year for a full campaign of Modified. Having had just one previous outing with his LRP powered BD5 WXi, he is looking forward this weekend as it will be his first chance to work with the factory team who have Umino Yukijiro on hand for technical support. In the first timed practice Dankel set the 11th fastest time. Former European junior champion Bernsten has got his new deal with Yokomo off to a good start setting the 6th fastest time in early practice.
In the middle of an intense few weeks of racing which started out with a race in Australia, followed by the IIC in Vegas then China last week and sees him head of to Hong Kong following this weekend, Volker said he is very confident about his ETS title defence. Happy with the feel of his car in practice which he heads by over a 1/10th of a second from Rheinard, the German gave the track layout a thumbs up. Asked about his set-up he said together with Umino they were just fine tuning the balance to get maximium steering without traction roll but he is very comfortable with the set-up they have already reached.
Having enjoyed a strong finish to last season’s ETS when he won both asphalt rounds, World Champion Marc Rheinard said he was surprised at his pace as his Speed Passion powered Tamiya TRF417X felt a lot worse than was reflected in the times. Struggling with the car, which features a chassis plate that uses a differently constructed carbon fibre, he said he is lacking corner speed and suffering from understeer. The German will try running a softer shock oil for the final round of practice ahead of this evening’s opening round of qualifying. A regular visitor to the MotoGP paddock as a guest of the Ducati team, Rheinard ran a special bodyshell in practice to remember fallen rider Marco Simoncelli. A total of four of the bodyshells have been painted up to reflect the helmet colours of the highly talent Italian rider with three of the large Italian contigent here running the others. Throughout the busy pit area here at the Philipp-Heift Halle there are many tributes to the #58 rider. Posting the fifth fastest time Rheinard’s TRF team-mate Viktor Wilck reported his Thunder Power equipped TRF417x, in which he is running prototype double jointed Tamiya front drive shafts, has the same issues and will also try a softer shock oil.
Heading the factory Xray team, Hagberg said his T3 2012 was a little difficult to drive but was fast. Describing the track as ‘very technical’ the Swede said he does not plan to make any set-up changes but will instead focus on tyre additive in an attempt to make the car a little easier to drive. This weekend marks the first event with new partner Ride being the controlled tires. Used by competitors at the final two asphalt events last season a softer tyre is being used here with drivers reporting very good durability and consistency.
A driver to spring up a number of surprises last season Hot Bodies’ Dominik Fleischmann set the sixth fastest time. Describing his LRP powered TCX as ‘pretty much dialled’ the German said he was pretty satisfied with the start to his weekend as University commitments have meant he has had little time to prepare for the event. Factory Hot Bodies driver Andy Moore, who enjoyed victory in China last weekend which was attended by most of the top drivers in action here, set the 10th fastest time. The newly crowned British Champion said the mixture of high and low speed corners is making it hard for him to get a good balance. Happy with his TCX on the tight corners he said the open corners are a struggle.
One of only three drivers to enjoy victory in the top class of the ETS last season Team Associated’s Juho Levanen was 12th fastest. The Finn said he was able to run a couple of good laps but he just hasn’t been able to run three consecutively. Having started to try something new in terms of set-up he said it wasn’t the right direction to take and reverting back to his carpet set-up from last season for the first timed practice he said the car was much better.
In the Xray Pro Stock class, Hot Bodies driver Oliver Franke headed the first timed practice ahead of the Schumacher of defending champion Martin Hofer.
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