Volker gets his Hat Trick
Ronald Volker has claimed a hat trick of Euro Touring Series victories by wrapping up the overall win for Round 3 of the series with another dominant performance in Leg 2 of the A-Mains here in St.Polten, Austria. The Team Yokomo driver took an even bigger winning margin than in Leg 1 to head home Marc Rheinard and Yannic Prumper. The European Champion said after his win in the Czech Republic he expected the switch from running on carpet to asphalt would take away Team Yokomo’s advantage but if anything they looked even stronger here in St.Polten with three cars making the A-Main. With the possibility of a Yokomo 1-2, Volker will run the third A-Main to try help his young team-mate Prumper to at least make the podium by denying rival teams taking the maximum points for the last race of the day.
Held up by an off the pace Andy Moore, who started ahead of him on the grid, Rheinard saw his ETS title defense all but disappear today. By the time the Tamiya driver got passed Moore’s Hot Bodies, Volker had already checked out. A frustrating weekend for the TRF squad, Rheinard has finished second overall to Volker in both Kastellaun and Hrotovice but even that position is under threat with his former junior team-mate Prumper back on the form that got the German talent noticed. Prumper has been quick to the acknowledge the support of Volker, the pair working really well together despite the absence of Yokomo set-up guru Umino.
Having saved his second set of tyres for the second A-main Team Associated’s Juho Levanen used the fresh rubber to claim fourth. The Finnish driver, who has been joined this weekend by Canadian team-mate Keven Hebert, said the TC6 feels good and that their lack of outright pace is down to additive, or lack of access to the right stuff.
Finishing fifth, just ahead of the people’s champion of this event Ivan Laptev, Moore said his car felt like it was broken but on inspection everything looks in order. Having looked so strong on day 1 of the event TQ’ing the opening round of qualifying the British driver is considering running his 1st set of tyres in the hope of curing the mysterious handling issues.
The second leg of the Pro Stock A-Main was a much better race than Leg 1. Getting his start right this time round Martin Hofer took his Schumacher to a comfortable 3-seconds winning margin over a great battle for second. While Hofer got the start right Ivan Laptev had what looked like an action replay of Leg 1. Finding himself once again at the tail of the field at the end of the first lap the Russian made a stunning recover getting his Awesomatix up on to the bumper of Franke’s Hot Bodies setting the fastest lap on the way. Trying everything he could to get passed the German, the Russian could not find a way past and had to sette for third putting him out of contention for the overall win today.
Xenon Modified A-main Leg 2 results
1. Ronald Völker – Yokomo BD5 – 20L 5:09.744
2. Marc Rheinard – Tamiya TRF417 – 20L 5:13.133
3. Yannic Prümper – Yokomo BD5 – 20L 5:14.354
4. Juho Levanen – Associated TC6 – 20L 5:15.710
5. Andy Moore – Hot Bodies TCX – 19L 5:02.253
6. Ivan Laptev – Awesomatix A700 – 19L 5:02.468
7. Michal Bok – Yokomo BD5 – 19L 5:03.387
8. Martin Hudy – Xray T3′11 – 19L 5:05.340
9. Keven Herbert – Associated TC6 – 19L 5:07.612
10.David Ehrbar – Xray T3′11 – 19L 5:09.326
Xray Pro Stock A-main Leg 2 results
1. Martin Hofer – Schumacher Mi4cx – 19L 5:10.140
2. Oliver Franke – Hot Bodies TCX – 19L 5:13.387
3. Ivan Laptev – Awesomatix A700 – 19L 5:13.627
4. Tony Streit – Xray T3′11 – 19L 5:14.007
5. Philip Tschupp – TOP Photon – 19L 5:14.687
6. Radek Flek – Yokomo DB5 – 19L 5:16.720
7. Marco Kaufmann – Xray T3′11 – 18L 5:07.370
8. Dai Sakaguchi – Tamiya TRF417 – 18L 5:09.519
9. Michael Koch – Hot Bodies TCX – 18L 5:11.989
10.Sandro Kuriger – Tamiya TRF417 – 5L 1:40.581
Full results can be found here.
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