Volker cruises to A1 win in Luxembourg
Ronald Volker cruised to an easy win in the opening A-Main at Round 5 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Luxembourg this morning, the Yokomo driver leading from start to finish. While the first lap saw a passing attempt by Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard, Volker would go the rest of the race unchallenged to win by 0.823 of a second from the No.2 car with World Champion Jilles Groskamp making up one place to complete the Top 3.
A slightly delayed start to the race after it was noticed Volker’s transponder had not registered as the cars sat on the grid, when the race did get underway the Top Quailifier didn’t have the best of opening laps overshooting two corners. Allowing Rheinard’s all white TRF418 to get down the inside at the hairpin leading onto the front straight it looked like defending champion might be challenged for the first time of the weekend. Trying to outdrag the Yokomo out of the corner, Rheinard couldn’t make it happen and had to back out for the next corner. From this point on Volker reaffaired his domination on the event opening up a gap he would control to the finish. ‘Pretty close at the beginning’ was how Volker summed up the race. Starting from his 15th ETS TQ position, he said for the first half a lap he struggled with his tyres not coming in and ‘Marc almost got the chance to pass’ him. Finishing the first full lap he said from then on his LRP powered BD7 was perfect allowing him to set the fastest lap of the race on lap 3 and by the 1-minute he had broken clear from Rheinard. Running ‘safe’ for the second half of the race he said other than fit a new set of Ride tyres he will leave the car as is adding that the only thing he would like for A2 is to get a better first lap.
‘At least it was not 5-seconds anymore’, was Rheinard’s response to how the race had gone referring to Volker’s blistering qualifying pace. The 3-time World Champion said he tried to capitalise on Volker struggling on the first lap but the inside line at the hairpin was too dirty and he didn’t have the traction to get on full power and outdrag his rival to the fast downhill chicane. Describing his car as ‘feel(ing) better’ today, he said for the second encounter he would leave it as is and ‘just see how it goes’.
Changing the diff oil and roll centres on his Orion powered TRF418 along with switching to his practice Protoform LTC-R body which is mounted more forward on the car, which he got to try in las night’s ‘Dash for Cash’, Groskamp said he was now quite happy with his car. Much closer today in lap times to both Volker and team-mate Rheinard he said his biggest problem is he doesn’t have the consistency and that is something he will work on. Able to catch Rheinard until an error over the curbing he said he will try a smoother driving style in A2.
Getting completely out of shape off the starting line, VBC Racing’s Lucas Urbain would finish 4th having lost a position to Groskamp on lap 2. Having ran his impressive qualifiers using no tyre warmers, the French driver said possibly the delayed start was the reason he made his sideway start. Losing ground to Groskamp after a mistake he said this left him to focus his attentions on a hard charging Viktor Wilck who he said was ‘challenging like crazy’. After 2-minutes he said his Wildfire was ‘as good as before’ and he was able to see off the Swede. For A2 he will change his tyre prep and use tyre warmers adding ‘hopefully’ this will allow him to keep position.
The Xray Pro Stock class would provide the best race of the A-Mains with Lars Hoppe snatching the win from Top Qualifier Marek Cerny right on the line with a great move down through the final chicane. Having shadowed the defending champion for the entire race, the pair breaking clear early, Hoppe’s ARC would cross the finishline 3/10ths in front of the Xray. Some distance behind Henrik Heitsch would compete the Top 3 with his ARC. Formula also produced a good early race between Top Qualifier David Ehrbar and the No.2 starting Olivier Bultynck. In the end the Belgian would get past the German’s Serpent to take the win with Roman Pichler completing the Top 3
Ride Modified A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(1) Ronald Volker (DE) – Yokomo – 16/5:00.318
2.(2) Marc Rheinard (DE) – Tamiya – 16/5:01.141
3.(4) Jilles Groskamp (NL) – Tamiya – 16/5:03.539
4.(3) Lucas Urbain (FR) – VBC Racing – 16/5:06.873
5.(5) Viktor Wilck (SE) – Tamiya – 16/5:07.054
6.(7) Alexander Hagberg (SE) – Xray – 16/5:07.567
7.(8) Elliott Harper (GB) – Team Durango – 16/5:08.409
8.(10)Christopher Krapp (DE) – Kyosho – 16/5:09.611
9.(9) Leo Arnold (FR) – Team Magic – 16/5:09.855
10.(6)Loic Jasmin (FR) – Yokomo – 16/5:13.586
Xray Pro Stock A-Main Leg 1 Result
1.(2) Lars Hoppe (DE) – ARC – 14/5:02.634
2.(1) Marek Cerny (CZ) – Xray – 14/5:02.945
3.(8) Henrik Heitsch (DE) – ARC – 14/5:11.843
4.(6) Gilles Choque (LU) – Xray – 14/5:13.351
5.(10)Joe Streff (LU) – Xray – 14/5:14.261
6.(3) Mike Gosvig (DK) – Awesomatix – 14/5:14.514
7.(5) Julian Borowski (DE) – Serpent – 14/5:14.693
8.(4) Martin Hofer (DE) – Schumacher – 14/5:15.990
9.(7) Jan Ratheisky (DE) – Xray – 14/5:16.132
10.(9)Max Machler (DE) – Awesomatix – 5/1:48.785
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