No surprises in Luxembourg as Volker takes Q1
The top of the time sheets for the opening qualifier of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Luxembourg contained no surprises as Ronald Volker capped off a perfect opening day to Round 5 of the championship with a TQ run. The Yokomo driver, who is very much on target to secure a fourth consecutive ETS title this weekend, outpaced his rivals by over 2-seconds, the second fastest time being set by Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard with the only remaining title challenger Alexander Hagberg managing only 7th in the first of the four qualifiers. Completing the top 3, only just, was VBC Racing’s Lucas Urbain who was 0.002 faster than fellow Frenchman Loic Jasmin. The qualifier saw a number of key non-finishers with Jilles Groskamp, Yannic Prumper, Marc Fischer and Andy Moore all having issues.
‘A good finish to the day’ was how Volker summed up his dominant performance. With his car feeling a ‘little more stable’ due to the cooler conditions of the late evening run, the 10 time ETS race winner said he was able to focus more on running clean lines over the 5-minutes. Unable to gauge how close his rivals were for the first two minutes of the run, the size of the track making it hard to keep drivers behind him in view, even when he did know the gap he still kept pushing. Aware that with tomorrow expected to be an even hotter day at Mini Circuit “Ville de Luxembourg”, of the four qualifiers this would most likely be the fastest due to the temperature so he went for a time so that should qualifying go to a tie break he would have the fastest TQ time in hand.
Only 7th fastest in practice, Rheinard said his TRF418 was easy to drive but it was ‘missing some steering’. Much happier with the self glued tyres Modified drivers got to run for qualifying, he said second was an ok start but he hoped to be able to find some speed for tomorrow. Over a 10th off the fastest lap set by Volker, he said he needs to chat with his engineer Kiyo Suzuki to discuss what plan of attack they will take for tomorrow morning’s Q2. Having been the leading Tamiya in practice team-mate Wilck set the fifth fastest time. The Swede said while his car suffered from a little understeer through right hand corners his main issue was two mistakes over the run. Following behind Yannic Prumper at the start he said when the German made a mistake it lead him to make a mistake also and on the last lap he had a ‘not so good line through the chicane’.
Urbain, who made his international name here at the Luxembourg track at the 2009 European Championship, was clearly delighted with his opening qualifier. Having shown himself to be competitive in practice, he said he changed nothing on his Wildfire D06 and from start to finish it worked perfectly. Posting the second fastest lap of the round he said he was ‘super happy’ with his run the only moment being when he got the car up on two wheels. He said for now he just wants to enjoy the moment, helped by the fact he beat his good friend Jasmin by such a narrow margin, but looking to tomorrow he believes there is so much more in the car as he didn’t drive it at near 100%.
With his LRP powered Yokomo BD7 being transformed for the final practice after a shock rebuild, reigning multiple French National Champion Jasmin was delighted with his ‘super close’ opening qualifier. Describing his car as OK in the beginning, it struggled a little on fresh tyres, he said from the middle to the finish it was really good. Running on the second fastest pace for a time behind Volker he said nerves kicked in a little towards the end but overall his car was ‘super fast’ and he plans to stick with the same set-up for Q2.
Making his return to the ETS having not raced in the championship since a tough season opener last November, Team Durango’s Elliott Harper completed the Top 6. The British driver described his qualifier as steady saying his DETC410, which is a standard kit car that he only built on Wednesday before coming out to Luxembourg, had ‘too conservative a set-up.’ Having changed the car for the final practice to get more rear grip for the hotter conditions he said he left it the same for Q1 but in the colder conditions this resulted in him being in a position where he ‘could have done with more steering’. Pleased to get Day 1 under him with a good first run, his main goal for the weekend to make the A-Main for the first time since joining Team Durango from Tamiya, he said he hopes to be able to build on that tomorrow.
The only driver left with a chance, albeit very slender, of denying Volker from taking the overall title this weekend, Hagberg summed up his Q1 performance as ‘slow & steady’. With his ORCA powered Xray T4 ‘too stable’, the Swede will revert to his final controlled practice set-up and go from there as he looks to make the handling ‘a bit more aggressive’. Behind Hagberg, newly signed French Team Magic driver Leo Arnold posted the 8th fastest time with Awesomatix’s Freddy Sudhoff and Capricorn’s Kyle Branson rounding out the Top 10.
Return to the ETS this weekend, the first qualifier didn’t go well for World Champion Jilles Groskamp. The former 2-time ETS Champion who doesn’t have a mechanic preferring to do all the work on his own car, lasted just 2-laps after forgetting to tighten the suspension blocks on his Orion powered TRF418. The Dutch ace who has flown in from Thailand for the race, said leaving his car prep to go glue his qualifying tyres in the controlled area on his return he just forgot to tighten the screws fully. After he ‘drove like shit’ Fischer decided to call time on his run after his second mistake to save his tyres. Moore lasted only 2-more laps after the inside of a front tyre came unglued on his Hobby Wing powered HB TCXX causing the car to pull badly to the right on the main straight from the second lap. Second fastest in practice Prumper said his Yokomo had ‘no forward traction’ as well as ‘pushing like hell’ and having made only slight adjustments to the car he said he can only put it down to a bad set of tyres.
In the Xray Pro Stock class, leading German 1:8 Onroad driver Lars Hoppe took the opening qualifier with his ARC chassis over the Xray of defending Champion Marek Cerny with the Schumacher of former Champion Martin Hofer third. In Formula Oliver Bultynck took the first qualifier but only after class debutant David Ehrbar made a late mistake with his Serpent.
Ride Modified Round 1 Qualifying – Top 10
1. Ronald Volker – Yokomo – 16/5:03.575
2. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya – 16/5:05.809
3. Lucas Urbain – VBC Racing – 16/5:06.375
4. Loic Jasmin – Yokomo – 16/5:06.377
5. Viktor Wilck – Tamiya – 16/5:06.386
6. Elliot Harper – Team Durango – 16/5:07.418
7. Alexander Hagberg – Xray – 16/5:08.092
8. Leo Arnold – Team Magic – 16/5:08.270
9. Freddy Sudhoff – Awesomatix – 16/5:09.085
10.Kyle Branson – Capricorn – 16/5:09.314
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