Hagberg top improver in final practice
The final practice at the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Germany saw no change in the top order with Ronald Volker’s first time practice standing to see the Yokomo driver go into qualifying for Round 2 of the championship as top seed. Setting an impressive pace on his debut for Serpent with the second fastest time, Viktor Wilck would too retain his position in the final ranking despite being unable to better his earlier 3-consecutive laps. Knocking 1/10th of a second off his pace it was last year’s race winner Alexander Hagberg who was the best placed improver in the second & final timed although his 3rd placing remained unchanged.
Changing to a thicker rear diff in his BD7, defending champion Volker said the change was too much and the car ‘did not feel comfortable to drive’. Winner of the season opener in the Czech Republic, the German said he preferred how the car ran in the TP1 and he will revert back to the diff set-up used then. With the lighter oiled diff back in the car he said everything should be good for tonight’s opening qualifier.
Trying to build up some knowledge with his new S411, Wilck ran different steering blocks in TP2 which changed the bump steer but the Swede didn’t like such change. With the car having more understeer, he will switch back to the car’s standard blocks. Also going up in the rear diff oil he said the chance was almost unnoticeable and so for the opening qualifier he will go up further in the oil weight. Team-mate Marc Fischer, having been 7th fastest in first timed round, would drop to 9th fastest as he failed to improve his time. Picking the better of the two cars he ran in TP1 but changing the set-up the German said it wasn’t good and for Q1 he will put the same set-up as he ran at Round 1 in Hrotovice.
While changes to his T4 gave him a faster car, Hagberg said they also made it inconsistent. Describing the handling as being ‘very loose in the rear’, adding that is something he needs to work on, he said while not ideal he was happy to at least have found steering.
Improving fractionally on his opening time, Marc Rheinard said changing to the LTC-R bodyshell improved his Tamiya ‘a little’. Appearing to be engaged in mind games with Volker and the Yokomo star’s engineer Yukijiro Umino, the Round 1 Top Qualifier was being coy about any other changes made. Describing his TRF419 as ‘good’ he added it could be a little better with the car ‘sometimes (getting) loose on power’ something he would like to rectify.
Opting to change to a completely different car for TP2, making the switch to a carbon chassis BD7, Yannic Prumper improved his pace despite a faulty servo. With the servo not returning to center correctly he said while he adjusted his driving around the problem, his fastest time coming from his last three laps, overall he feels the cars has good potential. With a new servo fitted he will use the car otherwise unchanged for the first round of qualifying.
Improving from 8th to 6th fastest. Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp was very happy with the effects of a body change. Switching to the LTC-R he said this improved the steering quite a bit. Describing the car as ‘bullet proof’ to drive he said no matter how hard he pushed it was really consistent. Very happy with his pace on carpet he would like to find just a little more steering and having discussed his options with the car’s designer back in Japan via messaging he will raise the rear hub to remove some of the car’s rear traction.
Having impressed with the 6th fastest time on his first run, Elliot Harper would have electric problems in the final practice and drop to 7th in the final seeding. Making changes to his new Schumacher, he said the car just had a lack of power and he is unsure why with the problem also making it difficult to gauge how effective the changes he made in terms of car set-up were. Behind Harper, France’s Loic Jasmin had a good second practice to post the 8th fastest time.
Completing the Top 10 was Andy Moore. The HB driver said with all of the development work for the new PRO5 having been done on asphalt he was pretty happy with the early pace on carpet. Having improved the car’s mid & exit corner speed with a diff change after TP1, he said the initial turn in still needs improvement although he added this seems to be a general problem so far for all drivers. Planning a significant set-up change for Q1 he said if it turns out too much he can ‘dial it back’ a little for Q2.
In the Xray Pro Stock class, Jan Ratheisky would end up fastest but like Volker in the Ride Modified class he couldn’t improve in the second practice. The Xray driver used the run to test a second set of tyres to evaluate the first set he was planning to use for the rest of the event. Happy that his race tyres can’t be improved on he said with a small front camber link adjustment he is all set for qualifying.
Fastest in the second practice ending up second to Ratheisky was his Xray team-mate Mike Gosvig. The Danish driver said he actually had a better car for the first practice but his 3-consecutive laps were slowed by traffic. Changing to a harder rear shock set-up for the second run, he said this caused the T4 to drift more. Set to go back to his early shock set-up, the 20-year-old said this should give him a ‘pretty good’ car for Q1.
Making his debut this weekend for Yokomo, former champion Martin Hofer would post the fourth fastest time behind the Awesomatix of Max Mächler. Having had to sit his last exams for his Master in Sciences, Hofer said he was really happy with how his BD7 ran out of the box this morning and it’s just got better and better each run, the two cars so far having just 6-minutes of running each on them. Changing to a shorter shock and to X-Gear springs as well as switching from Protoform’s Dart body to a Speed 6 over practice, for Q1 he will make the rear end softer to try and get the car to rotate better.
In Formula, Italy’s Francesco Martini knocked Xray team-mate Ratheisky off the top spot with his second practice pace. Changing to a softer front spring on his X1 and rebuilding the diff, Martini said the car had more on throttle steering as a result of the change. Finding the traction coming up between rounds he said this should further improve the car’s steering for Q1. Ratheisky said the changes he made to his X1 didn’t have the effect he expected with him having too much rear traction. Planning to change the rear wing mounting so that it is closer to the rear of the car he said while he has never tried it before it should reduce the rear traction.
View the complete event results here.
View our event image gallery here.
