Q2 Update
The second round of qualifying at the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series saw a repeat of last night’s opening heat with Ronald Volker again fastest in the Ride Modified class while Zdenko Kunák continued to set the pace in the Xray Pro stock class.
Having made a shock change to his LRP powered Yokomo BD5, Volker said it gave him the steering he lacked in Q1 allowing him to become the first driver to post a 24-lap run. The defending champion said after the first minute race announcer Scotty Ernst stopped giving the gap and while he knew he was the pace setter he had no idea how close the others were forcing him to drive more aggressively than normal. At the end of the 5-minute the result was a time that over 3-seconds quicker than Marc Rheinard who took second for the round.
Rheinard said his Tamiya was still the same as yesterday and his run to second was just a ‘lucky’ one as most of the others made mistakes. Suffering a lack of traction he said he changed the set-up on his Speed Passion powered TRF417 but it made no difference and having used his practice tyres in the morning’s open practice in which the car felt good said it has to be the tyres that are his problem.
Not happy with how his Awesomatix felt at the start of his Q1 run, Freddy Sudhoff used tyre warmers ahead of Q2 but he said while he made the A700 work well for the start in the middle of the run it felt like a drift car. Despite this the German still improved on his time opening time to again set the third fastest time. Sudhoff said he wont be using his tyre warmers for Q3 but wants to talk with the rest of the growing Awesomatix team to see what to try so as he has a more consistent car over the run.
Setting the fourth fastest time Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg summed up his start to Day 2 in Poland as ‘much better’. Having struggled more with his own driving yesterday the Swede said things felt ‘more normal’ today. Making a front roll centre change on his T3 2012 and running a smoother power curve on his ORCA speedo he said it was much nicer to drive. Making one mistake he said apart from Volker the rest of the field was very close with himself, Sudhoff and Rheinard separated by 7/10ths.
Team-mate Magnus Vässmar, the star of yesterday’s proceedings, said he made the mistake of not changing his car from yesterday. The larger than expected rise in traction over Q1 caught him out and with the car very edgy he had a roll leaving him to finish 6th for the round. The Swede said he will go for a safe set-up for his next run. Right behind Vässmar by just 19/1000ths was Martin Hudy, the man responsible for the development of the T3. The Slovak driver said he went from a hard to a soft shock oil for Q1 but he went too far but running in between the two this morning it was much better. Due to his poor opening run he said he drove a safe second round but believes there is more speed in the car. Changing to a harder diff oil for his next heat he said he will also drive harder this time round.
Inbetween the Xrays, HB’s Andy Moore set the fifth fastest time while Viktor Wilck, who was fourth in Q1, ended up 10th fastest after he applied his tyre additive earlier to try make his TRF417 more aggressive but it was too much. Gran Canaria race winner and standings leader Christopher Krapp said he used the morning’s open practice to make a big step forward with his Kyosho but a ‘huge’ mistake that lost him 5-seconds dropped him from a potential Top 5 run to 16th.
Behind Kunák in Pro Stock it was the joint championship standings leader Ivan Laptev and Martin Hofer. Laptev said a damper change to his A700 made it fast but tricky to drive. Still feeling he could improve his corner speed he said he will try something different for Q3 but said he also wants to start focusing on getting a comfortable set-up for the finals. Hofer said his Schumacher was a lot better than yesterday but he is fighting to keep it on four wheels.
Ride Modified Qualifying Round 2
1. Ronald Völker (DE) – Yokomo – 24/5:10.767
2. Marc Rheinard (DE) – Tamiya – 23/5:01.156
3. Freddy Südhoff (DE) – Awesomatix – 23/5:01.843
4. Alexander Hagberg (SE) – Xray – 23/5:01.942
5. Andy Moore (GB) – HB – 23/5:03.399
6. Magnus Vässmar (SE) – Xray – 23/5:04.277
7. Martin Hudy (SK) – Xray – 23/5:04.286
8. Niclas Nilsson (SE) – Xray – 23/5:05.112
9. Eric Dankel (DE) – Yokomo – 23/5:05.404
10.Viktor Wilck (SE) – Tamiya – 23/5:05.826
Xray Pro-Stock Qualifying Round 2
1. Zdenko Kunák (SK) – Xray – 22/5:08.252
2. Ivan Laptev (RU) – Awesomatix – 22/5:09.129
3. Martin Hofer (DE) – Schumacher – 22/5:09.319
4. Tony Streit (DE) – Xray – 22/5:09.418
5. Matej Rehak (CZ) – Xray – 22/5:10.283
6. Rob Janssen (NL) – Tamiya – 22/5:11.017
7. Michal Orlowski (PL) – Tamiya – 22/5:11.622
8. Carsten Madsen (DK) – Awesomatix – 21/5:11.697
9. Marek Cerny (CZ) – Yokomo – 22/5:11.924
10.Philip Tschupp (CH) – TOP – 22/5:12.654
View the complete results here.
View the event image gallery here.
