Volker takes Q1 in Mattsee
Ronald Volker has TQ’d a very close opening round of qualifying at Round 4 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Austria. Winner of the fahr(T)raum hosted event last year, the Yokomo driver would top the times by just 0.187 of a second from Xray’s Bruno Coelho. Just a further 0.265 off, Tamiya’s Akio Sobue who topped the times in practice would complete the Top 3 around the covered temporary asphalt track.
‘Pretty close’ was how Volker summed up the first qualifier. Starting second behind Sobue having ended up P2 in practice, the defending champion said he was that focused on trying to beat the Japanese driver that he wasn’t able to gauge how close Coelho actually was. Having closed in on Sobue at the start of the run he said as his BD7 started to suffer a little understeer he was on the limit trying to keep up with the Japanese driver. ‘Very happy to TQ Q1’, he said for tomorrow the plan is to try and find more steering which ‘hopefully will be enough to hold off Bruno & Akio’.
Coelho was happy with his 2nd considering a mistake in the opening laps saw his T4 slide on its side before ‘luckily’ it came back down on 4-wheels. Describing his car as ‘strange’ at the start of the run he said after a few laps he was ‘good’. Happy with how it ran in the warm-up laps he said the only thing he can attribute the ‘strange feeling’ to was the tyres going cold as the waited to get off the start, the ambient temperature at the time of the qualifier having dropped noticeably. Setting the fastest lap of Q1, he said the speed is there and he was catching Volker so without errors he is confident for Q2.
Sobue said his TRF419 was good but the problem was the driver. Making ‘a lot of small driver errors’, the 20-year-old said this is something he needs to work on for tomorrow but having run a faster lap time than Volker he is happy his car has the potential for a TQ run. High profile team-mate Marc Rheinard, who is running in the second fastest heat grouping, would post the 7th fastest time just missing out on a 25-lap run. The 4-time World Champion described it as a ‘slow run’. Running the same set-up as Sobue he said while the car is fine into the corner he ‘just can’t hit the throttle on the way out’ as it gets loose and he is ‘just trying to keep it on the track’.
Posting the fourth fastest time Alexander Hagberg said an early mistake caused him to lose his rhythm. Later in the run the Swede said he also had problems with traffic. The driver closest to his team-mate Coelho in terms of outright fastest lap time he said his ORCA powered T4 was ‘alright’ and but there was still a ‘few small details to work out’.
Setting the fifth fastest time Team Yokomo’s Yannic Prumper, who is without his Round 3 winning mechanic Toni Rheinard this weekend, said his BD7 had ‘big push’ at the start. The car would improve but towards the end of the five minutes the problem would return. He said the track felt to have more traction and for Q2 in the morning he might opt to run no warm-up laps to see if the car starts out better.
Completing the Top 6, Xray driver Marco Kaufmann was clearly happy with his qualifying performance. Ninth fastest in practice, the 21-year-old said he went into the qualifier just hoping he had enough speed to not get passed by top seed Sobue. Describing the result as ‘very good start for me’, he said running less rear toe-in to what he had in practice had improved his T4’s steering and he said he would leave it unchanged for Q2. Having not made the A-Main ‘for a long time’, he said he just wanted one more such run to secure an A-Main start for Sunday.
Andy Moore would set the eight fastest time continuing to be the fastest of the HB drivers. Team-mate Freddy Sudhoff just missed out on the Top 10, his PRO 5 11th fastest while Jilles Groskamp struggled to 28th. Moore said his run ‘wasn’t perfect’. Starting 10th he had to open up for Akio and then towards the end of the run trying to not also have to open up to let Volker passed he made a mistake that cost him over a second. The former World Champion said he still needs to work on getting his car better at the start of the run. Having changed his set-up for Q1 the car now started to work after 1-minute rather that the two it needed previously so he will continue in the same direction with further set-up changes. Behind Moore, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski and Serpent’s Viktor Wilck completed the Top 10.
In the Xray Pro-Stock class, which completed two of their four rounds of qualifying today, it was Season #8 Round 1 dominator Lars Hoppe who laid down the TQ pace. The ARC driver, who missed Round 3 in Italy, would take Q1 from the Tamiya of Christian Donath and in Q2 would outpace the Yokomo of Italian Nico Catelani. For defending champion Marek Cerny it was not a good day. Breaking his Xray in Q1 after just a minute, the Czech driver wouldn’t even start Q2 due to steering problems.
Despite racing with a shoulder injury and wearing a special support Jan Ratheisky hasn’t been hampered too much. Setting the pace in practice for both Pro Stock and Formula, the reigning Formula Champion would TQ the opening round of Formula from Serpent’s David Ehrbar who in Ratheisky’s absence took the win at Round 3 in Italy.
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