4 out of 4 for Volker
Having already secured his 14th overall TQ in the penultimate round of qualifying at the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Austria, Ronald Volker would go on to complete a clean sweep of qualifying at the fahr(T)raum hosted event. The fourth & final qualifier would see the defending champion head a Yokomo 1-2-3 with team-mates Yannic Prumper and Dominik Fleischmann both posting their best runs of the weekend. The result means it will be a Yokomo 1-2 line-up for tomorrow’s A-Main as the result secures Prumper second on the grid directly behind Volker. Once again Volker was the only driver to run 24-laps of the track, Q2 being the only time any of his rivals could achieve such a pace. Despite retiring from the final qualifier with electrical problems, Tamiya Racing Factory’s Viktor Wilck is the top non Yokomo qualifier, his TRF418 set to start 3rd just in front of team-mate Marc Rheinard who also failed to complete the last qualifier.
Having suffered a heavy impact and quite a bit of damage to his MuchMore powered BD7 in Q3, Prumper said following the rebuild his car seemed to be fine with him declaring Q4 ‘a good run’. Suffering from a touch of understeer at the start, something he admits all drivers are having to deal with, the 20-year-old believes he has a good car for the final but admits the nature of the track means overtaking is going to be close to impossible. Despite this he said he will try to push his team-mate as much as he can and ‘see what happens’.
Suffering from a problem that left his car with no steering when he was on the brakes, Wilck will do a complete change of electrics fitting a new speedo, receiver and steering servo to his car for the triple leg Mains. Challenging Volker for the TQ pace in the opening laps of Q4, he said when the car was free of the electric gremlins it was ‘OK’ and for tomorrow he will leave the same setup on for A1. The Swede said passing is going to be difficult and hinted that his focus might be more on trying to defend his 3rd position from the two Marcs starting behind him – Rheinard and Fischer.
Deciding to pull up late in the final qualifier after he crashed following contact with a marshal’s shoe, Rheinard said he is still not fast enough. Looking to reduce the roll in the car his engineer Kiyo Suzuki fitted hard springs to the TRF418, which like many cars here this weekend features World Championship test parts, but this resulted in slightly more understeer. The German, who hasn’t been on the podium since the season opener, expects tough finals saying mistakes are going to be the only way to pass but when a driver in front does make an early one it’s going to be very hard not to get involved in their crash.
Set to start 5th, Marc Fischer is really happy with his Serpent this weekend but said it was his driving that was at fault in the final qualifier. Catching the piping three times he said without the mistakes he could have been very close to Prumper and even Volker’s pace. Asked about the final, he said ‘starting behind the tank it was not going to be so easy’, the tank being Rheinard. He said he hopes his fellow countryman will attack but conceded it is going to be a hard race. In terms of his car he will leave the set-up the same.
Completing the top six on the grid, Fleischman was very happy with his final qualifier. The newly crowned German Indoor National Champion said he was nervous going into the qualifier as two bad opening rounds meant he needed a good result. Having rebuilt the diff in his LRP powered BD7 for the final run he said this transformed the car and he was able to make a clean run to the third fastest time.
Unfortunately for Round 2 winner Alexander Hagberg, who sits second in the championship points standings, he is going to have his work cut out for him starting from seventh on the grid. The factory Xray driver said his final qualifier was similar to the one before and for the finals he is going to have to consider something radical with his set-up if he is to find the pace he has been lacking all day. Behind Hagberg, Awesomatix’s Freddy Sudhoff, Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp and HB’s Andy Moore complete the grid.
While Hagberg hasn’t had the day he would have liked, in contrast his Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky pulled off the perfect day to TQ both the Xray Pro-Stock class and Formula. In Pro-Stock there was three way points tie for the overall TQ as Henrik Heitsch became the fourth different driver to top a qualifier. Ratheisky took the tie-break over team-mate and defending champion Marek Cerny with former Champion Martin Hofer’s Schumacher set to carry the No.3.
Ride Modified A-Main Grid
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 310 pts
2. Yannic Prumper – Team Yokomo – 306
3. Viktor Wilck – Tamiya Racing Factory – 305
4. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya Racing Factory – 305
5. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 302
6. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 301
7. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 301
8. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 297
9. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 296
10.Andy Moore – HB – 296
Ride Modified Round 4 Qualifying – Top 10
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 24/5:12.616
2. Yannic Prumper – Team Yokomo – 23/5:00.910
3. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 23/5:01.487
4. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 23/5:02.394
5. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 23/5:02.632
6. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 23/5:03.606
7. Andy Moore – HB – 23/5:04.800
8. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 23/5:05.041
9. Magnus Vassmar – Team Xray – 23/5:06.550
10.Kono Takayuki – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:08.932
Xray Pro-Stock A-Main Grid
1. Jan Ratheisky – Team Xray – 508 pts
2. Marek Cerny – Team Xray – 508
3. Martin Hofer – Schumacher – 508
4. Henrik Heitsch – ARC – 505
5. Tobias Seidl – Team C – 504
6. Andreas Myberg – Xray – 502
7. Barnabas Toth – Yokomo – 501
8. Oliver Franke – Awesomatix – 497
9. Tony Streit – Serpent – 496
10.Florian Botzenhart – Team C – 494
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