Volker tops 1st timed practice at ETS season opener
Ronald Volker has opened the ninth season of Yokomo Euro Touring Series at the top of the time sheets. The reigning champion set the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the first timed practice with his new Yokomo BD7 2016 heading the Xray’s of Bruno Coelho and Alexander Hagberg in the Czech Republic. An event which Volker has won during each of his five successful ETS title campaigns, the German was just 0.064 faster than Coelho, the Portuguese driver a much stronger package than 12-months ago when he made his ETS debut at the Hrotovice event.
With Volker, like many of his rivals, running two cars during the 5-minute practice the German found the second to be more comfortable. Both aluminium chassis cars, he said the difference between them was just in their set-up and having identified the best one they will for the second seeding round run just the one car. Liking the layout Michal Bok and his father have created this year he said with the car ‘still too loose for [his] personal feeling, they needed to work on making it ‘more comfortable’ but overall he was happy to open the season with the fastest time.
Back to back testing an aluminium and a carbon chassis T4, Coelho said ‘one is fast, the other is more consistent. Not giving away which was which, he said both cars felt ‘amazing’ but added ‘they’re not perfect so there is more to come’. Making his carpet racing debut here last year, just scraping into the A-Main, he said the track was a better layout for him this year with him describing the left side as technical and the right as ‘fast’.
Also running two different chassis, Hagberg said his ‘2nd one was better’. Describing the track as having ‘surprisingly low traction’ adding he hopes it will come up, he said his preferred car had ‘a more aggressive set-up’ but stopped at giving away whether it was an carbon or alu chassis. Feeling the car is slightly tweaked he said ‘if we can find that (the tweak) it should be really good’.
Only on his second battery in his new BD7 2016, Yannic Prumper was fourth fastest. The German has run just one car, using the free practice to break in a set of new for Season #9 Volante tyres. Making no changes to his car between runs, instead waiting for the traction to come up, the declared himself comfortable with the car on second run tyres. Able to focus on a 5-minute run rather than 3-laps, he believes he has a ‘really good’ pace. In the second & final seeding practice, he will us the track time to break in another set of tyres.
‘Not as far off I though we would be’ was how Marc Rheinard summed up setting the 5th fastest time. A former winner in Hrotovice, the Tamiya driver said the free practice felt better than the timed run. Running an alu and a carbon car, the 4-time World Champion said the carbon chassis TRF419 had more grip but he couldn’t get three laps together and his time was from the alu car. Having attended the Mibo Cup race at the same venue at the end of last month, the German said he ‘expect Viljami to be faster’, the Awesomatix driver having won the event.
Completing the Top 6 was Rheinard’s TRF team-mate Christopher Krapp. With this the start of his first full ETS campaign with Tamiya, the former Kyosho driver & ETS race winner said his car was ‘surprisingly good’. Attending the Mibo Cup as preparation for this weekend he said their performance then was ‘not really good’ and that Marc and himself together with Japan have done a lot of work since then to improve things. Adding that ‘the carbon chassis improved the car a lot’, he said it is a little loose on the rear and this is now what they need to work on. Behind Krapp, Yokomo’s Meen Vejrak, the returning Adrian Berntsen, Nicolas Lee and Schumacher’s Elliot Harper completed the Top 10.
Predicted as a real dangerman coming into the 47th ETS race, Kutvonen would only manage 24th just behind another expected front runner Freddy Sudhoff. The factory Awesomatix driver who won the Mibo Cup convincingly with the Russian manufacturers all-new A800, said today he was ‘just missing traction compared to Mibo’. The Finn who feels the revision Volante have made to the tyre for the start of their roll out as the ETS controlled tyre is a big part of his issues. ‘Struggling with set-up’ he will try a ‘completely different set-up’ for the final practice adding ‘hopefully then we will be back in business’.
Elsewhere with Serpent debuting their new S411 ERYX 4.0 in the Czech Republic, Viktor Wilck said things hadn’t started out well saying ‘it feels like (there is) no grip’. 15th fastest The Swede continued ‘it seems the grip is very low here so I will test a carbon chassis in the next one’. Team-mate Marc Fischer, a podium finisher here two years ago, was only 19th fastest.
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