Coelho fastest from Rheinard in first timed practice at ETS
Bruno Coelho was fastest in the first of the two timed practice at Round 2 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Daun, Germany, this morning. The Xray driver topped the times from Round 1 winner Marc Rheinard having a 2/10ths of a second advantage over his arch rival. Behind, Yannic Prumper laid down his intentions early to complete the Top 3 on the uniquely shaped track with the margin a similar 2/10ths. Such is the size of the high speed layout at the holiday resort venue, seeding this weekend is being based on a driver’s best 2-consecutive laps rather than the traditional 3.
On his second weekend in Daun, having competed at the EOS at the same venue last weekend, Coelho summed up his first seeding run as ‘very good’. Coming into the weekend 3-points off Rheinard in the standings, he said, ‘The car was a little difficult to drive in the free practice but we were able to improve it.’ Running a prototype of Hobbywing’s upcoming 5 turn motor release, the Portuguese driver added, ‘we are working on the best speedo setting to use for the motor but the 5-turn is very nice for carpet. We will make a few more speedo changes for the next one’. Asked how traction is coming up he replied, ‘the traction is still strange and the track is a little bumpy but the biggest challenge is the layout for sure. I’m still finding it hard. It very challenging’.
‘Not too bad’, was how Rheinard summed up his performance. The Infinity driver continued, ‘the feeling of the car is good. My lap times are ok and consistent and my 2-laps that counted were not perfect so I think we are looking pretty good’. Running ‘pretty much the same set-up as ETS Round 1’ he has no plans to change anything for now adding, ‘the layout is the challenge and the important thing is to drive with no mistake’. With the majority of drivers using the second of their allocated Volante handout tyres in the first timed practice, having used the first set in the single round of free practice, he said the final timed practice would be a good idea indication of the field’s pace on used tyres.
Prumper described his practice pace as ‘quite good’ but added, ‘I just need to improve my driving’. Returning to Yokomo for the 2018 season after a lean 2017 season with VBC, the German continued, ‘the pace is there. The car is quite good, its easy and relaxed to drive so I will just refresh everything for the next one’. Like his rivals he said while happy with his car it was the track that was the biggest challenge this weekend concluding, ‘to go fast you have to take big risks. Its challenging’.
Posting the fourth fastest time, Alexander Hagberg summed up timed practice as ‘a lot better’ due to the grip having come up. Calling the track, ‘very challenging’ he said ‘you must drive clean’. The Xray driver continued, ‘the car is on the pace, I need to drive it better’. Working off the same set-up as the previous ETS encounter, the Swede concluded, ‘we will fine tune from there’.
Fastest in the free practice and just 0.017 off Hagberg, Christopher Krapp said the timed practice went ‘pretty well’. The Yokomo driver added, ‘All our cars except maybe Ronald’s are working well on our pretty standard set-up’. A former race winner, he continued, ‘there is not much time to adjust to this layout so I had a few driver errors and I will try to improve this. You take a lot of risks each lap, its more high speed than what you usually race. You need to be calm which I am good at, and this is what will get you good runs’.
Ronald Volker would complete the Top 6. Working on his own car this weekend following engineer Yukijiro Umino’s departure from Yokomo, he said, ‘I was breaking in my second set of tyres like most others but I didn’t feel as comfortable as on the first set’. Planning a tyre change for his second timed practice, he will also try running a slightly harder diff. He concluded, ‘We should be fine later when the grip comes up because that’s how its been before’.
View the event image gallery here.
