Rheinard TQ’s opening qualifier at ETS
Marc Rheinard will be hoping Day 1 of the new season of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series is a sign of things to come after the Tamiya driver TQ’d the opening round of qualifying from arch rival Ronald Volker. A very close encounter which saw last season’s Top 3 finishers all take turns at the top of the time screens in the Czech Republic, a last lap error by Volker would allow Rheinard to take the first of the weekend’s four qualifiers by a comfortable 1.476 seconds with Alexander Hagberg completing the Top 3 a further 3/10th off.
Setting the fastest lap, Rheinard summed up the run as ‘fine’ having survived a moment on the straight half way into the 5-minute qualifier. Getting sideways on the straight after he hit the curbing on the entry he said this lost him up to 8/10th of a second but in terms of the rest of the run he was pretty happy with how it went. Running his aluminium chassis TRF419, the German said having a good set of tyres, unlike those he had in the final practice, the car was good again. Planning to keep the car the same for the morning’s second qualifier he said the only thing he would do is just refreshen up the shocks.
Increasingly struggling to make conversation due to a worsening cough, Volker said being sick started to catch up with him having trouble focusing on his Yokomo around the track. Dominating this event last season on the way to his fourth ETS championship title, he said he was already over the limit trying to stay in control of the car with his concentration finally giving way on the last lap resulting in him rolling the BD7. Aside from the driver struggling, the German ace said the car had a little more understeer than he was expecting which while it made the car easy to drive left him lacking the outright pace he had in the final practice. Adding that it is the ‘details on track that will decide’ the rest of the weekend with the pace very close he said he will work on the driver first with a dose of medicine and an early night planned.
Describing his Xray as being better than in practice, Hagberg said his ORCA powered T4 was very good for the first 3-minutes before dropping off. Running wide on the straight the Swede would catch a bump on the outside which to his surprise almost launched the car into the fencing with the moment costing him 7/10th of a second. Other than that he said the rest of the run was clean but added that for tomorrow morning he needs to work on getting the car to be more consistent for the full 5-minutes.
Opting to run a brand new set of tyres for the first qualifying, most drivers having scrubbed in their allocated tyres during practice, Yannic Prumper would be disappointed with fourth. Expecting the track to be ‘stickier’ he said the tyres took too long to come in with his early laps being ‘too slow’. With his Much More powered BD7 on pace at the end, his fastest lap being his last, he said at least for now he has two scrubbed sets of tyres for the remaining qualifiers.
Serpent’s Marc Fischer would set the fifth fastest time. Changes to the ackerman and rear diff on his S411 gave the former Hrotovice podium finisher a better car at the beginning of the qualifier but it again would develop understeer. Losing out on fourth after a couple of trips across the corner dots towards the end of the run, the German plans to revert to the set-up he ran in his open practice for Q2.
Completing an impressive first day on his competitive step into Modified, 2-time defending ETS Pro Stock champion Marek Cerny posted the sixth fastest time. The Xray driver said his T4 was easy to drive but having seen a number of drivers make mistakes, one of such drivers being his super fast team-mate Bruno Coehlo, he decided it best to adapt a conservative approach to the run adding the outcome ‘was ok’. Planning to go with a similar approach tomorrow for Q2 with the aim of another safe round he said then he can look at pushing in the remaining two.
Making the rear of his Tamiya narrower and running a different shock set-up Viktor Wilck would set the 7th fastest time. The Swede said while a little better he is ‘still too slow’. Asked what changes he would make to achieve this for Q2 he said he would give it thought overnight to try and come up with a potential solution.
Taking his Awesomatix to the 8th fastest time Viljami Kutvonen described his opening heat as ‘ok but too slow’. Suffering ‘too much understeer’, the Finn said in practice his focus had been to get a good balance on his A700 and having now achieved that the plan for tomorrow was getting more steering. Having run a Bittydesign M15 body shell today he said for Q2 he will switch to the Italian company’s Nardo shell which should increase steering. Behind Kutvonen his team-mates Dionys Stadler and Freddy Südhoff completed the Top 10.
In the Xray Pro Stock class, having set the pace in practice ARC’s Lars Hoppe was able to carry forward that form and TQ the first round of qualifying from defending champion Marek Cerny. Leaving his R10 2015 unchanged from the final practice, the German describing the car as working well, he was the only driver to complete 20 laps. Describing the run as ‘safe’ he added he didn’t hold back either as was clear from him setting the fastest lap of the round. With the car ‘working well’ and the track very consistent he said there is ‘no reason to make any changes’ for Q2.
Cerny said he missed out on a potential TQ because of a ‘stupid mistake’. With his Xray struggling in left corners, something he intially put down to tyres, he said he discovered afterwards that the servo link was hitting the top deck effecting how linear the car’s steering was to the left. Having made changes to the car’s steering set-up for Q1 he said overall this improved the feeling and he is confident that with the link fixed for Q2 he should be good. Winner of this event last year, Jan Ratheisky was third closely followed by fellow Xray driver Valentin Hettrich. Ratheisky would take the first round of Formula qualifying, the defending champion set the fastest time from practice pace setter Herbert Weber with René Kölbel completing the Top 3.
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