Volker No.1 seed for qualifying
Ronald Volker is the top seed for qualifying at the sixth & final round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Slovakia with his rivals unable to better the time set by the defending champion in the first of the two timed practice runs. Also topping the 2nd practice, with a 3-consecutive lap time that was half a second slower than his earlier run, the Yokomo driver will lead away the top heat in qualifying with his team-mate Yannic Prumper, who also failed to improve on his opening time, starting behind him. Having posted the fourth fastest time in P1, Tamiya’s Viktor Wilck was fastest of the drivers to improve in P2 as he posted the 2nd quickest time behind Volker which will rank the Swede third for qualifying ahead of team-mate & title contender Marc Rheinard.
Volker said he was not surprised at being slower in the second practice as they expected this due to the high temperatures. Despite the slower pace, the German said his LRP powered BD7 was still well balanced but having made a mistake in both his practice runs he said even with a good car the track is still challenging and going for a clean 5-minute qualifier ‘will not be so easy’. In terms of set-up, Volker said while his car feels better today than yesterday, they may look at making some very minor changes based on information they gathered running in the cooler conditions yesterday evening.
Team-mate Prumper posted the 3rd fastest time in P2, the German saying a small droop change made by his mechanic Toni Rheinard made his BD7 roll too much and for the opening qualifier he will revert to how the car was in P1.
Improving his time by 5/10ths, Wilck said his TRF417 was a little better following a change to a lighter shock oil and a change of tyre additive. The Swede said he will stick with the same set-up for the first qualifier adding that it is all down to what set of tyres he gets as he felt the sets of tyres he used in his two practice runs felt quite different.
Despite failing to improve on his P1 time, a time he was not pleased with when compared to Volker’s blistering pace, Rheinard looked a lot more relieved after P2 having discovered the front right double joint CVD on his Tamiya was extremely tight. The German said this would ‘for sure’ have effected the car particularly in the high speed corners adding that he hopes this is the reason for him being over one second off his arch rival Volker over just three consecutive laps. Starting behind the 3-time World Champion will be HB’s Andy Moore whose second practice only lasted little over 3-minutes after a tyre came unglued.
Making a huge step forward in terms of pace Team Xray’s Magnus Vassmar went from being 10th fastest in P1 to setting the 6th fastest time overall making him the top Xray seed going into qualifying. The Swedish driver said a combination of a lot of small changes to his T4 had ‘finally’ given him the feeling he was looking for from the car. The changes made the car much easier to drive and improved its rotation in the corners. Although the rear of the car may be now a little too loose he said the direction he has taken with the set-up is much better and he will stay the same for Q1 as he is confident over 5-minutes it should be good.
Getting bumped back to 7th by his Xray team-mate, Alexander Hagberg said he is ‘still too slow’ with the suspension geometry change he made for P2 ‘not really any better’. Planning to revert to his regular base set-up for the first qualifier he said he will try instead to focus on doing as good an run as possible and hope it gives him a solid points haul for the opening round of 5 qualifiers.
Starting ninth, behind Serpent’s Marc Fischer who improved slightly on his P1 time, factory Awesomatix driver Freddy Sudhoff was very happy with his second practice which was half a second faster than his earlier run. With new parts arriving for the A700 last night with the car’s designer Oleg Babich, which help prevent torque steer on the all shaft drive chassis, Sudhoff said the car is getting better and better as they find what is the best combination of using the new parts with regular parts on the car.
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