Volker is Top Qualifier in Luxembourg
Ronald Volker has moved a step closer to clinching a fifth consecutive Euro Touring Series championship title after the Yokomo ace claimed the overall TQ in Luxembourg. His 18th time to become Top Qualifier, the German secured pole position for tomorrow’s penultimate round of Season #8 when he completed a perfect day at Mini Circuit “Ville de Luxembourg” with a third TQ run in the fourth & final round of qualifying. Denying Volker the TQ in the opening qualifier last night, a late P3 in the final heat will see Alexander Hagberg start from second on the grid. Behind the Swede, Volker’s bonus TQ championship point ending his title hopes, HB’s Jilles Groskamp will start third followed by Xray’s Bruno Coelho. Volker’s other two title rivals Marc Rheinard and Yannic Prumper start 6th and 8th respectively meaning the are going to need to pull off something impressive if they are to force the title to go to the season finale at the Hudy Arena next month.
The driver with the most TQ starts in the ETS, commenting on his latest one Volker said ‘after yesterday’s qualifier I couldn’t have expected three TQ runs today’. Not making the task easy for himself, for the third time he would clip the curbing on the uphill section of the large track’s feature corner sending his LRP powered BD7 into a 720 degree spin. ‘Super lucky not to lose more time’, he said apart from that one incident his car was really good with him particularly pleased, despite being on second run tyres, that he was able to set his fastest time of the day. Looking to the finals, he said ‘tomorrow is going to be a different story as everyone will be on new tyres’ adding ‘I just hope for a good track and good sets of tyres so that I can run a clean race’.
Changing to the set of tyres he used to take Q1, after his second set of tyres ‘spoilt’ two of his qualifiers today, Hagberg said his ORCA powered T4 was ‘better again’. Posting the third fastest time in the final qualifier ahead of Loic Jasmin, the Swede said ‘luckily I snatched third on the last lap which gave me second on the grid, a good position for tomorrow’. He continued ‘it’s a shame the tyres are so inconsistent and I’m concerned for the finals as tyres are going to be a bit of a lottery’. Feeling his car is good he said ‘I just need to hope I get good sets of tyres to put on it’.
Running new tyres in the final qualifier but having heard complaints from others when they changed to their second set, Groskamp said his PRO5 was pretty good in Q4. With the car feeling exactly the same on both sets of tyres, the 2012 World Champion said this was encouraging in terms of showing his car has a well balanced set-up. Happy with his consistentcy of three Top 3 qualifying runs, he said being sandwiched between the two Xrays he would have preferred the drivers in the opposite order. Admitting Coelho is faster and a better match for Volker’s pace, he said having him starting from second would have been nice as ‘maybe something would happen between him and Volker’ allowing him to capitalise. While his team-mates Freddy Sudhoff and Andy Moore missed the A-Main, Groskamp feels this event has been a big step forward for his HB/HPI Racing team as they now have a good base set-up to work from which has given him more confidence.
Coelho said his final qualifier started out good before a ‘little mistake’ dropped him off the TQ pace but worse was to come as his T4 took flight. No idea why it did this, he said he could only assume he caught a bump or something on the track. Before the incident he said the car was perfect, a fact highlighted by yet another fastest lap for the round. Admmitting his performance was helped by a ‘lucky set of tyres’, when asked about starting from fourth on the grid he said ‘as normal I want to finish in a better position and with a little more luck I think this should be possible’.
Having qualified and finished sixth at this event last year, Yokomo driver Loic Jasmin was delighted to qualify fifth. Finishing the final qualifying fourth having just got pipped for third by Hagberg on the last lap, the French driver said he wants to at least hold his position in the finals. Joking to his team-mate Volker that ‘the first guy is super slow so I should be able to make a few places in the traffic jam behind him’, he said having Marc Rheinard starting behind you is never good for the nerves but he would try his best to keep ahead of the 4-time World Champion.
Saving his second set of tyres for the final qualifier, Rheinard was said he was ‘really sick of the tyre situation’. Hoping to capitalise on the fresh tyres so as to take a good result in the final qualifier for a strong starting position he said it was a ‘maximum fail’. On new tyres yesterday he said he almost pulled off a TQ but now he struggled to make Top 10 against drivers who were on used tyres. He said his Much More powered TRF419 is a lot stronger this weekend than previous ETS encounters but starting from 6th especially with ‘grip not so high’ it’s going to be difficult to pull off a good result but added ‘in the finals anything can happen so let’s wait and see’.
In Pro Stock and Formula it will also be the reigning champions who will start from pole position. Xray’s Marek Cerny would secure the overall TQ on a tie break with Nico Catelani, the class seeing four different drivers topping the qualifiers. Topping the final qualifier, Lars Hoppe will start third. Formula Champion Jan Ratheisky would also claim the TQ on a tie break coming back to top the final qualifier to pair with VBC Racing’s Olivier Bultynck who also ran two TQ rounds. Serpent’s ETS Round 3 winner David Ehrbar starts third.
View the complete event results here.
View our event image gallery here.
