Volker stamps authority on opening day
Determined to put the drama that befell him and his Yokomo team in Gran Canaria last month, defending Euro Touring Series Champion Ronald Volker sent out a clear message to his rivals on the opening day of the fourth round of the series when he stamped his authority on proceedings with a TQ run in the opening round of qualifying. The German took the first of the five scheduled qualifiers by 2.9 second from surprise man of the day Magnus Vässmar, the Xray driver carrying his impressive practice pace through to qualifying.
Very happy with his opening qualifier and the margin he had over his rivals, Volker said while his car felt like it had a lot of understeer it was obviously not as bad as that experienced by others. With the result from Round 3, where he was classified 10th, set to be one of his dropped scores he said this weekend is an important one for getting his title defense back on target and today was a perfect first step to getting that done this weekend. Admitting that in terms of individual lap times he was not the fastest, he said his car was more importantly easy to drive for the 5-minutes. Planning to try get a little more steering for tomorrow morning’s second qualifier Volker said he will discuss tonight what changes he will make with his engineer Umino but said it will be in the set-up rather than a change to his tyre prep.
Having been modest about his pace in practice 25-year-old Vässmar managed to a crack a smile after his Q1 performance saying he was very happy with his day and at being able to keep it together for the opening heat. Making only his second ETS appearance of the season having finished sixth in the B-Main at Round 2 in Italy, the Swede said he will think about making a few small tweaks to his set-up but not before sleeping on it tonight.
Despite losing around 1.5 seconds when he missed his braking and spun in front of Andy Moore who had nowhere to go and flipped the German, Freddy Sudhoff still managed to open his qualifying with the third fastest time. Making his first ETS appearance since signing for Awesomatix, the former podium finisher said his A700 was difficult at the start of the run but once the tyres came up to temperature it was ‘super good’ as highlighted by his 12.876 sec fastest lap of the day which he set on lap 13 of 23. ‘Fast Freddy’ said he will try a different tyre prep for Q2 to try and get the tyres to come in earlier in the run.
Having struggled in timed practice as a result of which he is running in the second fastest qualifying group, Viktor Wilck ended his day on a positive taking his Tamiya to the fourth fastest time just under a tenth of a second behind Sudhoff. Happy with the result the factory Tamiya driver said his car wasn’t good to drive. Pushing at the beginning of the run by the end it was very loose possibly as a result of his tyres overheating. Unsure what changes are required to cure the problem the Swede said the only thing he knows for sure right now is that he needs to try something different tomorrow. TRF team-mate Marc Rheinard was clearly not happy with his run to the fifth fastest time. The former series Champion, who needs a win this weekend if he wants to have any chance of challenging for this season’s title, is adamant that a bad set of tyres are responsible for his drop off in pace since the morning’s practice runs.
Completing the Top 6 was Alexander Hagberg. The Swede who made two mistakes over the run but said it ‘could have been worse’. Describing his ORCA powered T3 2012 as being still too sensitive to drive he said they need to work on finding a set-up for tomorrow that gives him confidence again with the car. Team-mate Zdenko Kunák was on a potential 2nd fastest time until he rolled his car three laps from the finish. Losing 3 seconds the mistake cost the talented Slovakian 5 places as he ended the round 7th.
While he missed out on a top run in Modified Kunák drove a faultless opening Pro-Stock qualifier to top the times by 2.1 seconds from the HB of Steffen Leinburger, the man who beat the Round 1 winner at the second race of the season in Italy to secure his first ever ETS win. Tony Streit completed the Top 3 ahead of joint standings leader Ivan Laptev. Defending Champion Martin Hofer had a terrible Q1 after he rolled his Schumacher resulting in only 22nd for the Round while early practice pace setter Oliver Franke didn’t get off to a good start either ending up down in 29th. In the Speed Passion Formula class Germany’s Dai Sakaguchi took the opening qualifier ahead of Austrian Hebert Weber.
Ride Modified Qualifying Round 1
1. Ronald Völker (DE) – Yokomo – 23/5:00.845
2. Magnus Vässmar (SE) – Xray – 23/5:03.759
3. Freddy Südhoff (DE) – Awesomatix – 23/5:04.942
4. Viktor Wilck (SE) – Tamiya – 23/5:05.037
5. Marc Rheinard (DE) – Tamiya – 23/5:05.041
6. Alexander Hagberg (SE) – Xray – 23/5:05.801
7. Zdenko Kunák (SK) – Xray – 23/5:06.107
8. Eric Dankel (DE) – Yokomo – 23/5:07.017
9. Marco Kaufmann (DE) – Xray – 23/5:07.500
10.Andy Moore (GB) – HB – 23/5:08.284
Xray Pro-Stock Qualifying Round 1
1. Zdenko Kunák (SK) – Xray – 22/5:08.593
2. Steffen Leinburger (DE) – HB – 22/5:10.714
3. Tony Streit (DE) – Xray – 22/5:11.939
4. Ivan Laptev (RU) – Awesomatix – 22/5:12.134
5. Denis Zuykov (RU) – Awesomatix – 22/5:12.793
6. Felix Wiessmann (DE) – Yokomo – 22/5:13.040
7. Marek Cerny (CZ) – Yokomo – 22/5:13.061
8. Daniel Wohlgemuth (DE) – HB – 22/5:13.224
9. Matej Rehak (CZ) – Xray – 22/5:14.536
10.Carsten Madsen (DK) – Awesomatix – 21/5:00.458
View the complete results here.
View the event image gallery here.
