Perfect start to campaign for Volker
Team Yokomo’s Ronald Volker has got his 2011/12 Yokomo Euro Touring Series campaign off to the best start possible by backing up his pace in practice with a TQ run in the opening round of qualifying in Germany tonight. The defending champion took the first of the four scheduled qualifiers by 2/10th of a second from Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard with Viktor Wilck third.
Volker, who won the opening three rounds of last season’s ETS en-route to the title, said he made a slightly over cautious start to his Q1 run losing him some time early on to Rheinard. Once settled into his rhythm the German said he was very comfortable with his LRP powered BD5 WXi and started to pushed harder and once aware of his 3/10th advantage over Rheinard said he focused on keeping the remainder of the run clean.
Rheinard, who pulled off an impressive save when his car got up on two wheels, said his TRF417x was easier to drive following a switch to a heavier shock oil after final practice. Despite setting the fastest lap the World Champion said he needs to find more steering. TRF team-mate Wilck ran a gear diff in the front of his car which he said made for better handling in the second half of the run but he too was also suffering with the front end pushing, the Swede plans to switch back to a spool for Q2 tomorrow morning.
‘Much better than last season on carpet’ was how Team Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp responded to his run to the fourth fastest time. The German said he has never been good at the 3-consecutive-lap timing used in practice but felt going into qualifying that his Shin edition TF6 had the potential for a good time over 5-minutes. Having changed diff oil and shock springs for the first qualifying run he said the car had a little understeer but he thinks a change of bodyshell should cure this and he is feeling good about the three remaining rounds of qualifying tomorrow.
For 18-year-old Zdenko Kunák it was a very successful first day in German as he TQ’d the first round of Pro Stock qualifying and set an impressive fifth fastest time in the competitive Ride Modified field. The top Xray driver in Modified he said a small mistake cost him a potential top three time but he was very happy with fifth and he hopes he can continue his form tomorrow in both classes. Xray team-mate Alexander Hagberg, who was second fastest in practice, was upset with himself for making what he called two stupid mistakes. Very happy with his T3 2012 he said he pushed too hard resulting in the two rolls that dropped him to 8th fastest behind the two Hot Bodies of Dominik Fleischmann and Freddy Südhoff.
For reiging Pro Stock Champion Martin Hofer the day was not as successful as that of Volker. The Schumacher driver, who was complimentary of Kunák’s driving today, is struggling with traction roll on just one particular corner of the track and ended Q1 only 8th fastest. Behind Kunák, Oliver Franke set the second fastest time with Awesomatix team driver Ivan Laptev third.
View complete race results here.
View the event image gallery here.
