Perfect day for Volker at Hudy Arena
It was the perfect day for Ronald Volker at the Hudy Racing Arena in Slovakia as the Team Yokomo driver topping the opening two rounds of qualifying at the title deciding season finale of the 2012/13 Yokomo Euro Touring Series. Having topped timed practice earlier in the day, the German who is chasing a third consecutive ETS title opened qualifying with a TQ run which he then backed up with an even faster 5-minute run in Q2 which brought Day 1 of the event to a close. Once again it was Tamiya’s Viktor Wilck who was the closest challenger, the Swede again posting the second fastest time in a Round that saw tyre strategy play a big part, Serpent’s Marc Fischer benefiting from near new tyres to set the 3rd quickest run.
‘Everything is going to plan’ was how Volker summed up the day. Running his second set of allocated Ride tyres in Q2 he said they knew they had to match Wilck who also ran new tyres for the round. Admitting that Wilck has the faster car in the early laps he said he had to be careful not to drive too aggressively trying to match him and this approach paid off as on lap 5 of 17 he assumed control of the pace staying there till the end to take the round, which was 2.5 seconds quicker than Q1, by 1.7 seconds from Wilck. Wilck said he had the same issues as in Q1 with his TRF417 ‘pretty good’ for the first few laps before the front tyres go off and the car starts to ‘push’.
Having pulled up in Q1 after 5-laps following a crash, Fischer was happy with his 3rd. The German described his opening laps as a ‘little shit’ but said his S411 feels good and for tomorrow he will stay with the same set-up. Setting the fourth fastest time and the quickest driver for the round on second run tyres was Yannic Prümper. The Yokomo driver said considering this and how close he was able to run with Fischer he was pretty pleased with the run.
While Volker has had the perfect day the same cant be said for his only title rival. Rheinard had a spin on his opening lap which cost him a second and overall the German is not happy with the performance of his TRF417 on such a critical weekend, the 3-time World Champion critical of the tyres.
Completing the Top 6 was Team Xray’s Adrian Berntsen. The Norwegian suffered an speedo problem in Q1 which ended his run after just 4-laps, but the 19-year-old was able to turn that to his advantage in Q2 as he capitalised on having fresher tyres. Happy with his T4 he said by the end of the run the car started to develop understeer and for tomorrow’s remaining 3 qualifiers he plans to alter his tyre prep.
Setting the seventh fastest time on used tyres, Freddy Südhoff said he was surprised at how good his Awesomatix ran. While the cooler condition have always suited the A700, he said he was still pleased with the performance of the car considering the number of drivers who ran new tyres. Another driver running on practically new tyres was Team Associated’s Juho Levanen who posted the 9th fastest time behind Alexander Hagberg. Completing only 2-laps in Q1, just like Italian Alessio Menicucci who set the 10th fastest time, the former ETS race winner said he was a little disappointed he didn’t finish higher. Describing his TC6.1 as feeling ‘pretty good’ he said he needs now to choose carefully when he runs his second set of tyres.
In the Xray Pro Stock class Zdenko Kunak made it the perfect day for Yokomo as he backed up his Q1 TQ run with another fastest time in the second qualifier ahead of Viljami Kutvonen and championship protagonist Marek Cerny.
View the event results here.
View our event image gallery here.
