Volker surprises himself with opening TQ run
Series leader Ronald Volker has topped the opening qualifier at the fourth round of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Poland. Although he has dominated the first half of the 2010/11 ETS season the German was surprised to have TQ’d and said afterwards it was a lucky TQ as his rivals all made mistakes. The factory Yokomo driver said he had no idea why but hs LRP powered BD5WX did not have as much traction on fresh rubber as it did in yesterday final practice. Setting only the fifth fastest lap time, Volker plans to try a set-up nearer to that used by team-mate Yannic Prumper who set the fastest lap of the first round of heats. Prumper was on a TQ pace for much of the run but a mistake on his penultimate lap dropped him back to third.
Setting the second fastest time, Elliot Harper was very happy with his opening heat saying afterwards it was nice to be competitive again. Making one error during the run, the sole Tamiya Racing Factory entry in Legionowo was happy with the performance of his Speed Passion powered TRF417. Easy to drive, he plans to leave the set-up the same for now and go for a safe run in Q2 after which he plans to try some changes.
Having set the pace yesterday Alexander Hagberg spoiled his run with a mistake on his third lap which cost him over a second. Another mistake at the end of the run cost the factory Xray driver a further second in time. The Swede said his his T3’11 has the pace to TQ but he just needs to get his driving right for Q2 and put in a clean run.
Hot Bodies’ Andy Moore set the fifth fastest time but the former World Champion said he made a school boy error with his race tyres yesterday. Using the final practice to scrub in one of his allocated race tyres he took them off the car without marking them and then this morning had to guess which corner to put them back on. Struggling to get his Moore Speed powered TCX to go straight for the first three minutes of the run he said he guessed wrongly but with the car starting to feel a lot better in the final minute of the qualifier he is confident he can be closer to the pace in Q2.
Completing the top 6 was Team Associated’s Juho Levanen. The Finn was really happy in the warm-up with his car but when the heat got underway his TC6 wanted to traction roll forcing him to drive a cautious round. Ending up over 4.5 seconds off Volker’s TQ time he hopes a droop change will cure the problem for the second qualifier.
In Pro Stock Schumacher’s Martin Hofer TQ’d over practice pace setter Oliver Franke and Russian ace Ivan Laptev. Hofer said his Mi4cx was easy to drive and if he can tidy up his driving a little more a 22 lap run is very possible. Franke switched to CS additive this morning on his Hot Bodies but said that was the wrong choice and will return to LRP for Q2 which gave the TCX more corner speed.
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