Prumper wins action packed A1 in Italy
Yannic Prumper has won an action packed opening A-Main at Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Italy, the Yokomo driver heading a somewhat unexpected Yokomo 1-2 from team-mate Meen Vejrak. From the start it was an action packed race as Top Qualifier Ronald Volker and the no.2 starting Xray of Bruno Coelho made contact on lap 3. With Coelho coming off worst and dropping to the tail of the field while Volker continued to lead clearly struggling, the German would then put his Yokomo on the grass allowing five cars through. Posting the fastest lap of the race, once in front Prumper took control followed by Vejrak while the ever spectacular Coelho worked his way back to the front to finish 3rd, followed by Xray team-mate Alexander Hagberg. Suffering his third incident of the race when he rolled after contact with championship title rival Marc Rheinard, Volker would eventually finish up 7th. Unfortunately after a good start by HB’s Jilles Groskamp his race would come to a sudden end when the former World Champion collected the Tamiya of Christopher Krapp, his replacement at TRF, which after crashing slid from the middle section of the track and into the path of the fourth placed PRO5, the high speed contact breaking both cars.
‘A very good start to the day’ was how Prumper summed up the first A-Main. Describing his Muchmore powered BD7 as ‘a little loose for the first few laps’, putting that down to running on new tyres, he said after that the car was ‘very good’. Catching up his team-mate he said he the then ‘got unlucky’ as Volker made a mistake letting him to go into the lead and with no pressure from Vejrak the race was pretty straight forward thereafter. The 21-year-old, who came into the weekend sitting joint third in the standings with Hagberg, is clearly fired up by the prospects of claim his first ETS win his Austria in 2012.
Continuing to turn around his weekend after qualifying started out with two DNFs, Vejrak was pleased with second from his best ETS starting position of fourth. Running a different rear arm on his Scorpion powered BD7, he said it gave him more steering but during the race the wind started to cause the car to get loose and he never got to opportunity to take the fight to his team-mate as he played safe to maintain second. Playing catch-up in terms of setup as he needed to run the car unchanged in the final two qualifiers to be sure of getting two finishes, he said he will further change the car for A2 as he looks for more forward traction.
‘Unlucky’, that was Coelho’s reaction to finishing third. A welcomed addition to the championship, this season being his first campaign, the Portuguese star said ‘I overtook Ronald (Volker) but he he put me out’. Describing his LRP powered T4 as ‘super good’ he declared A2 will be better and ‘next time I will make the pass stick’.
Giving his view of the incident Volker said ‘Surely it’s not how I wanted to start the day’. ‘Bruno pushed hard and tried to pass me around the outside but in my opinion he was not far enough ahead for me to give up the corner and unfortunately he suffered a body tuck’. The championship leader said ‘I lacked overall traction from start to finish and I had a hard time just getting around the track’. Still in the lead, he said through the long right hander he got out of shape touching the paint and it was this that cost him the win. Hoping his traction issues were only due to his first set of tyres he said hopefully for the next one the second set will be fine.
‘I improved from 6th to 4th so the race was OK’, was Hagberg’s reaction to the race. Running third for a time he said a little mistake lost him that position and had it not been his team-mate Coelho he would not have opened up so much. Describing his T4 as ‘alright’ over the 5-minutes, the Swede said he is ‘pretty optimistc’ for A2 that he can again move up places through the race.
From 8th on the grid Freddy Sudhoff would finish 5th. The HB driver said a set-up change made after qualifying gave him a car that better suited his driving style. Trying a pass on Hagberg at the end of the straight the German said he locked up hard and after that his tyres were done. Behind Sudhoff, France’s Loic Jasmin would complete the Top 6.
In the Xray Pro Stock class Marek Cerny would take an easy tone to tone win. The Xray driver was never troubled over the 5-minutes as won by over 2-seconds from the Yokomo of Martin Hofer while Team C’s Johannes Sperr completed the Top 3. In Formula, Top Qualifier David Ehrbar made a mess of the start allowing Hofer to lead. Caught in traffic the German would be pushed out onto the grass allowing Michele Romagnoli to the front where he would stay to win from a recovering Ehrbar.
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