Volker completes quali clean sweep
Having wrapped up his first overall TQ of the current ETS season in the penultimate round of qualifying, Ronald Volker has completed the clean sweep in Wels, Austria. The Yokomo driver claimed a very close fourth & final qualifier ahead of an improved Alexander Hagberg with the Top 5 covered by just 0.834 of a second. Overall it will be joint championship leaders Bruno Coelho and Marc Rheinard who will line up behind Volker with Hagberg and Viljami Kutvonen completing the top half of the A-Main grid for the final carpet encounter of the season.
With nothing to be lost or gained in the final qualifier, Volker ‘just tried to repeat Q3 but with a clean run’, the German taking the third round despite rolling his BD7. Describing the run as having ‘started better’ with him ‘matching Bruno & Marc’s pace’ this left him ‘quite confident’. After a mistake from Coelho he then ‘took it easy, almost too easy’ admitting he didn’t know how close his rivals were until the end of the heat, the gap to Hagberg 4/10th of a second. With Q4 a confident boost that the car is now a match for his rivals at the beginning of the run, looking to the finals he said his approach would be to ‘try and not get caught at the start and maintain a gap’ over his pursuers.
Trying ‘something new’ in the final qualifier, Coelho said his car ‘did not work as well and (they) will go back’ to his Q3 set-up as it had ‘lost its edge’ over the initial laps. Predicting it will be ‘super difficult to overtake’, the three time ETS race winner said with his Hobbywing powered T4 ‘working very well’ he will fight for the win adding ‘we will see what happens’.
Third fastest in the final quali, just 0.029 off Hagberg, Rheinard said changes to his car meant it didn’t fade as quick towards the end of the run but push was still an issue. With his TRF team-mate Christopher Krapp, who will line up 9th on the grid, also using Q4 to test a different set-up Rheinard plans to copy his fellow countryman set-up for the opening final tomorrow morning. Looking to the finals, highlighting three of the new TRF419X had made it to the grid, he said the important thing for him was to maintain his run of carpet podium finishes before the championship moves outdoor but added with ‘Alex is fast now and Viljami too, it is going to be interesting’.
‘Was better’ was how Hagberg summed up changes to his car for Q4. The Xray driver said while his ORCA powered T4 was good at the end of the 5-minutes he felt he lost ground at the start and they need to get a better balance over the run. Confident they can get it good for the final, the Swede added with everyone so close he is looking forward to racing which he feels will be ‘interesting’. Admitting it is going to be difficult to pass without pushing someone out of the way he added it’s also going to be hard to drive clean with the field so tight.
Enjoying his best qualifying of the season, Kutvonen said ‘it feels good to be so close to the ETS Top 4’ pointing out they are the same group every race. Adjusting the rear toe and front spring on his LRP powered Awesomatix, the Finn said the changes made his A800-A ‘very good early on’ but at the end he had too much understeer and this is something he ‘hope to figure out’ a fix for going into the finals. Starting behind Kutvonen will be Marc Fischer in the new Serpent 4X followed by Tamiya’s Akio Sobue, Team Associated’s Juho Levanen, Krapp and Magnus Vassmar with the new Schumacher Mi6.
In both the Pro Stock and Formula it is the championship leader of both, Jan Ratheisky, who claimed the honour of Top Qualifier. After a P2 in Q1 of the Serpent Formula class, the Xray driver claimed the next three qualifiers to put his Xray X1 on pole ahead of Olivier Bultynck and Andreas Myrberg. In the Xray Pro Stock class his only TQ run in Q4 secured the winner of the season opener his second TQ bonus championship point of the season. Lining up behind the popular German will be Yokomo driver Valentin Hettrich and the Awesomatix of ETS Germany winner Tony Streit with reigning champion Marek Cerny fourth.
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