Volker is Top Qualifier at Austrian ETS
Ronald Volker is Top Qualifier for the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series, another fastest run in the third qualifier of the Austrian event securing the German his 14th pole position start of the championship. Claiming his third valuable bonus TQ championship point of Season #7, the defending champion was the only driver to do 24-laps in Q3, topping the round from Tamiya Factory Racing team-mates Viktor Wilck and Marc Rheinard. With two from four rounds counting towards the final order Q4 will decide who lines up behind the defending champion on the grid with five drivers in contention. A US boards style track, something that has not been seen in the ETS before, grid position is expected to play a big part in the racing with drivers predicting it will be tough to pass on the narrow and unforgiving track.
Pleased to add this to his record run of TQ’s, Volker said he struggled with an overall lack of traction due to running on used tyres adding that his team-mate Yannic Prumper had better pace. Unfortunately for Prumper a crash 2-minutes in while on a TQ pace would end his challenge to force the TQ battle to go to the fourth & final qualifier. Describing Q3 as ‘a good clean run’, Volker, who having so far finished all three rounds on the podium this season is Mr. Consistent, said he was very pleased to take the bonus point from his rivals with his gap now 8 points over Team Xray’s Alexander Hagberg. Looking to tomorrow’s finals, Volker said starting out front on this track is a big advantage and his plan is to just focus on building up an early gap on the pursuing pack. The German, who will be chasing his 10th championship win this weekend, said mistakes here have the potential to not only effect the driver who makes them but also the following drivers with very little room to take evasive action.
Setting the fastest lap of the race, Prumper would do extensive damage to his BD7 as he pushed hard to maintain his TQ pace. Through the double right he would hit the track boards at full throttle. Twisting the front bulkheads, breaking the car’s top deck and pulling off the rear body posts, his mechanic Toni Rheinard said luckily his bodyshell and set of tyres came out of the incident undamaged.
Despite his speedo losing brakes during the qualifier, Wilck said the run was ‘not too bad’. Just 0.315 of a second off a 24-lapper, the two time ETS race winner said his TRF418 is good at the beginning of the run but later on it starts to lose steering. With all drivers running LRP Carpet 2 tyre additive – the controlled additive specifically for this round of the championship, Wilck said he will have to solve the issue through a set-up change but what that change would be he was not yet sure.
‘Not perfect but driveable’ was how Rheinard summed up his MuchMore powered TRF418 after Q3. The German, who has not been on the podium since the season opener, said ‘for sure the car was better than Q2 but still not the same as yesterday’. Having shown hints that he might challenge Volker for his first win of the season last night in Q1, today he said the car rolls too much causing it to be slow to change direction. For the final qualifier, the 11 time ETS race winner will try running harder shock springs.
Setting the fifth fastest time, Marc Fischer said his Serpent was ‘way better’ now. Running a heavier diff in his Viper powered S411 ERYX 3.0 the German was despite 2 or 3 mistakes of his own happy with his performance but less so by that of Nicola Marrone. Stuck behind the Italian Yokomo driver for a number of laps he eventually was let past only for Marrone to run full throttle into the back of him down the straight. The impact costed Fischer around 1-second but left Marrone with a completely destroyed BD7 as on contact it went airborne crashing into the wooden bridge for the timing loop. Fischer said his car is much better than 5th fastest and he will run it as is for the final qualifier.
While Volker laid down his mark on the Ride Modified class, in the Xray Pro-Stock class Schumacher’s Martin Hofer became the third different driver to post a TQ run. The former champion topped the round from Q2 pace setter Marek Cerny and the Czech driver’s Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky who was fastest in the opening qualifier. Ratheisky moved a step closer to successfully defending his Formula title as he took Q3 ahead of Roman Pichler to secure the overall TQ spot for tomorrow’s finals.
Ride Modified Round 3 Qualifying – Top 10
1. Ronald Volker – Team Yokomo – 24/5:11.811
2. Viktor Wilck – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:00.315
3. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya Racing Factory – 23/5:01.961
4. Alexander Hagberg – Team Xray – 23/5:02.015
5. Marc Fischer – Team Serpent – 23/5:02.781
6. Dominik Fleischmann – Team Yokomo – 23/5:03.715
7. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 23/5:05.415
8. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 23/5:7.104
9. Magnus Vassmar – Team Xray – 23/5:08.536
10.Juho Levanen – Team Associated – 23/5:09.414
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