Volker wins ETS season opener
Ronald Volker has won an extremely close opening round of Season #8 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in which four drivers went into the third A-Main in the Czech Republic with a chance of the overall win. Starting from second on the grid behind Marc Rheinard, the pair having taking a win a piece in the first two Mains, the outcome of the race would again be decided by driver error with Rheinard making a similar mistake to the one he made in A2 and Volker made in A1. In the end Volker would win the leg from Alexander Hagberg and Yannic Prumper to continue his run of successive season opening wins with today’s 40th ETS race marking his 5th win of Round 1 of the World famous touring car championship. While Hagberg and Prumper would complete the podium in that order, Rheinard would end A3 last leaving him to end what had started out as a very strong start to his attempt to take back the ETS title from Volker in 4th overall.
Moving into the lead on lap 4 and keeping it there to the finish, Volker said ‘I feel excited now after struggling with myself in qualifying as well as being unlucky in A1’. With his win taking him back equal with Rheinard as the championship’s most winning driver he said ‘this season we had to work harder than before to keep up with the other teams and it is great that it paid off with us getting two cars on the podium today’. Commenting on his A3 race, he said ‘in the beginning I was faster than Marc but after his roll and my own mistake in A1 I lost my confidence through the corner before the straight’ adding this was compounded by the fact he had to go for all or nothing to secure the overall win because of Hagberg having second place finishes in both A1 & 2. Admitting Hagberg ‘got close but not too close’ to the rear of his BD7 he said going into the last lap he knew he had the win adding he had some luck on his side as he somehow managed to avoid Rheinard’s rolling Tamiya. Thanking Yukijiro Umino for again providing him with a car to get the job done, Volker said it was an exciting weekend. Predicting the rest of the season is going to be exciting & intense he said despite having won the title for the last four years he was hungrier than ever to win the title.
‘Drove shit’, that was Rheinard’s response to his race as he lost the lead again due to hitting the curbing. Having to change to his second set of tyres as his first set were done after A2, he said the pace was not there on the second set but added ‘ultimately I made the mistake’. Disappointed to not even get a podium having started the event so well by claiming his first TQ on carpet since 2010, the 1:12 World Champion said at least now he leaves Hrotovice with the knowledge that Tamiya ‘now have a good car’ and ‘with a little more luck next time’ he is confident he can take a ‘long overdue’ win on carpet.
Having redone the tweak on his Xray T4, Hagberg said his car was ‘better that time’ but added he ‘was too focused at times trying to keep Yannic behind’. The Swede was able to close in on Volker for a time until a bad line over the curbing would end that challenge allowing Prumper to apply pressure from behind. Setting the fastest lap of the race he would again close on Volker over the last four laps but he ran out of time. The best start to the ETS for last year’s 3rd place championship finisher, with Round 2 heading to German in February where he took a convincing win last year, the newly crowned nitro touring car World Champion is very upbeat both in terms of his car and in his own performance.
Prumper said his Yokomo BD7 felt better than in A2 but added there was ‘no way to pass on this track’. Starting from 4th on the grid the 21-year-old said the win was never on the cards but as a result of Rheinard’s error he was able to ‘jump up to a podium finish’. Describing it as a good start to the season he said hopefully next time out they can get a handle on the car quicker so as to qualify higher up the grid. Taking another fourth place in A3, Awesomatix’ Viljami Kutvonen would end up fifth overall behind Rheinard with ETS debutant Bruno Coehlo completing the Top 6.
The other class to be decided in A3 was Formula with the outcome also seeing the defending champion Jan Ratheisky take the win. Having won A1 and then thrown away the lead in A2, the Xray driver would easily win the final leg to give his new X1 its first international win. The podium would be completed by the CRC of former champion & A2 winner Herbert Weber and Serpent’s David Ehrbar. Despite having already sewn up his first Pro Stock win in A2, Team ARC driver Lars Hoppe would go on to cap off the perfect weekend with another win in A3. Behind him last year’s winner Ratheisky would finish runner-up with Valentin Hettrich completing the podium. For defending champion Marek Cerny it was not a good start to the defence of his second consecutive title as while A3 would be his best race with 2nd a DNF in A1 and 8th in A2 would leave him 7th overall.
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