Rheinard repeats in Q3 to again head Xray duo
Marc Rheinard repeated his morning’s qualifying performance at the opening round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series, the Tamiya driver putting in a second & faster TQ run in the third & penultimate qualifier at the Czech Republic event. Again fighting it out over the 5-minutes with Xray’s Bruno Coelho, both just 8/10th shy of making 24 laps, the gap at the end would be a much closer 0.025 of a second. Making it a carbon copy of Q2, Alexander Hagberg continued as Mr. Consistent as he again was 3rd fastest in front of last night’s Q1 pace setter Ronald Volker.
Putting himself on target to repeat the overall TQ he claimed in Hrotovice last year, Rheinard said ‘I struggled at the beginning with some bad lines and jumped the curbs twice’. Settling into his rhythm, the 4-time World Champion said pulling clear of Volker he was then able to focus on driving his own race. Dropping to second as a result of ‘Hagberg and Coelho pushing each other’, he said on hearing race director Scotty Ernst announce he dropped off the top spot he put in a ‘big push’. Getting back onto the TQ pace, he added ‘I almost threw it away on the last lap with a big mistake over the curbs that cost me 2/10ths’. Managing to break into the 12-second lap times for the first time in Q3 on 5-run old tyres, the only change he will make to his TRF419 for the final qualifier, Volker the only one who can deny him the overall TQ, is to change to his second set of one run old spec Volante tyres.
Giving reaction to his third qualifier, Coelho said his T4 was ‘perfect’ with the Portuguese driver also happy to have run the 5-minutes without mistakes. Putting his 2/100ths of a second shortcoming down to ‘maybe nerves on the final lap’, the electric offroad World Champion said taking the fight for the TQ with Rheinard down to the final lap showed they are right in the hunt for the win. 1.3-seconds back, team-mate Hagberg declared ‘I was too slow’. Making a mistake on his first lap he would have to open up for Coelho but planning to make his T4 ‘a little more free’ for the final qualifier, he said he hoped that would put him ‘back in the fight’.
Changing to his second set of tyres for Q3, Volker said his car lacked steering and felt off balance. Having changed set-up for Q2 and struggled over the start of the run, they reverted the car back to its Q1 topping set-up but on the new tyres the German said the performance was a big step backwards. The Yokomo driver said while happy to be going into the final qualifier still in the hunt for the overall TQ was good but added ‘we really need to find something now to deny Marc the TQ’.
Behind Volker were his team-mates Yannic Prumper, Meen Vejrak and Loic Jasmin. Changing from an aluminium to a carbon chassis on his new BD7 2016, Prumper said it ‘was a little improvement’ but they still need to make the car a lot better. Lacking corner speed he said the will try his ‘basic set-up’ for Q4. Vejrak, who finished ahead of Prumper in Q2, was on target to do that again but made a last lap error that cost him over a second. Safe for the A-Main start, the Thai driver will for the final round make the same switch as Prumper did and try a carbon chassis.
Jasmin said switching to a softer rear spring on his BD7 gave him more steering and although he hit the curbing a few times and had to open up to let Rheinard pass, overall it was his best run of the event. Finally comfortable with the car, the French driver said he needs to pull everything together for the final qualifier with the A-Main still a possibility.
Making it three Xrays in the Top 10 with the 9th fastest time behind the Tamiya of Christopher Krapp, British team driver Olly Jeffries said a simple rear wing change had transformed his T4. Having spent the lead up to the weekend testing at the Hudy Arena, he said there they ran a wing with a gurney flap and the car was really good. On arriving at the ETS track however he found himself struggling for grip but admitted that when you’re having problems the first thing you do is remove the shell put it under your pit table and look at what could be wrong with the chassis. On the suggestion of his mechanic last night, this morning they decided to change the wing having run out of ideas for set-up changes and immediately they were half a second a lap quicker. With his P9 Jeffries is hopeful he can do enough in the final qualifier to join his team-mates on the A-Main grid.
In Pro Stock Tom Krägefski denied his Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky from claiming an early TQ when he topped Q3 ahead of the pace setter of the opening two qualifiers, with Helge Johannessen completing the Top 3. In the Serpent Formula class, Ratheisky also goes into the fourth & final qualifier vying for the overall TQ having backed up his Q2 TQ win a second in Round 3. Fellow Xray driver Jitse Miedema, who topped the opening round, is the only one who can prevent the Champion from starting his title defence on pole position.
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