Euro Touring Series

December 6, 2014

Chassis Focus – Lars Hoppe

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Chassis – ARC R10 2015
Motor – MuchMore (Handout)
ESC – MuhMore (Handout)
Batteries – XciteRc 7400 mah
Tires – Ride (handout)
Radio/Servo – Ko Propo/Graupner
Bodyshell – Blitz GSF
Remarks – German ARC driver Lars Hoppe dominated ProStock qualifying with his example of the 2015 version of the R10 touring car, equipped with a few option parts. These include an aluminum chassis, low friction transmission parts and ball cups, and a set of shorter shocks from the 2013 version of the car.

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December 6, 2014

Chassis Focus – Viljami Kutvonen

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Chassis – Awesomatix A700 Evo
Motor – LRP X20
ESC – LRP Flow
Batteries – LRP 6000mah
Tires – Ride (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/Awesomatix
Bodyshell – Bittydesign M15
Remarks – Proving the fastest of the Awesomatix, Viljami’s A700 Evo is sporting here a bunch of new interesting parts. The most important improvement seems to be the new shocks that now allow the changing of the oil viscosity. Another important change is the new chassis plate, that despite featuring the same weight distribution as the previous one, has a narrower shape and therefore more side clearance to prevent the car from touching the ground while rolling. The car also features some new front and rear aluminum lower arms. Right in front of the rear gearbox are two new innovative items: a floating motor mount and a spur gear damper that is meant to absorb the initial torque coming from the motor to increase handling and power management. Last but not least, the Finn is also using the brand new M15 bodyshell from italian manufacturer Bittydesign.

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December 6, 2014

Video – Modified Qualifying Round 3

December 6, 2014

Late Volker error hands Rheinard Q3

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In what was building up to be a great climax to qualifying at the Euro Touring Series season opener in the Czech Republic, a late error by Ronald Volker cost him an all but certain first TQ run of the weekend with Marc Rheinard being the benefactor for his second TQ round of the event. Had Volker been able to go 30-seconds longer without error it would have set-up a three way showdown for the overall TQ between the defending champion, Rheinard and Q2 pace setter Alexander Hagberg. In the end the 7/10th lost by Volker would allow both Rheinard and Hagberg to finish 1-2 as he dropped to third, with the three separated by just 2/10ths. Rheinard & Hagberg are now set to battle for the overall in Hrotovice with the pressure on Hagberg as he needs to top the round in a faster time of the one just set by Rheinard.

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‘That was a hard one’ was how Rheinard summed up the penultimate qualifier. The Tamiya Racing Factory lead driver said ‘Ronald was a little faster that time’ admitting that without his rival’s error he didn’t have the pace to match him as he still struggled with his TRF419 having issue with left hand corners towards the end of the 5-minutes. Having changed the rear shock position which improved the car slightly he said with his team-mate Viktor Wilck finding a big improvement by changing to the same shock oil front and rear he will also do this for the last round.

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Asked about his run, Hagberg replied ‘bad driving’. The Swede said his T4 was again good but this time round he just ‘overshot too many corners’. Confident he has the car to take the overall TQ, he said it’s just down to him to drive it better.

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Volker was clearly upset at having thrown away the chance to be in contention to extend his ETS record of being the driver with the most TQs. He said ‘I cant be more upset with myself than I am right now’. Having ‘had it (TQ) in the books’, the Yokomo driver would catch a dot and roll over his LRP powered BD7 on his second last lap. Having improved the car with it having more steering but becoming a little more difficult he said he couldn’t get the job done and he could only blame himself for such an incident. Failing to complete one error free run since the start of the event he said it was time to get that sorted in the last one, a good result having the potential to secure him second on the grid.

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Setting the fastest lap of Q3, Wilck said his TRF419 was again a little better. Having been running light shock oil in the rear of his car, he made them the same going down in the front and up in the rear to 550w all round. Losing some time behind Serpent’s Marc Fischer, who ended up 8th fastest, the Swede was pleased with the direction he is going now in terms of set-up and he will continue in that direction with further changes for the last qualifier.

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Just 0.027 off Wilck, Yokomo’s Yannic Prumper said it was a ‘clean but just too slow’ run. Having made the rear of his BD7 wider this left the car ‘pushing like hell’ and for the final qualifier he will go back to a narrower rear track width.

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Completing the Top 6, Juho Levanen put his sudden improvement down to figuring out how to deal with understeer. Happy with his TC6.2 in practice, the Finn said from the start of qualifying he has struggled with understeer. Trying running ‘a lot less toe than normal’ in Q3 he said the car worked pretty good and while he would like to work on improving the balance between the car being too hard to drive in the beginning and having too much understeer at the end, because he needs another good result to make the main so he might just opt to run the car as is for the last round.

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In the Xray Pro Stock class a third TQ run from Lars Hoppe saw him secure his first overall ETS TQ. The ARC driver was again the only driver to run 20-laps of the large track, topping the times from last year’s race winner Jan Ratheisky, Valentin Hettrich and defending champion Marek Cerny. In Formula, former champion and practice pace setter Herbert Weber took his first TQ run followed by René Kölbel after Q1 & 2 Ratheisky hit trouble while on the TQ pace.

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December 6, 2014

Hagberg tops Q2 at ETS

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Alexander Hagberg took the second round of qualifying at the season opener of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series this morning, the Xray driver topping the times in the Czech Republic by 0.187 from last night’s Q1 pace setter Marc Rheinard. A reverse of the order in which the Top 3 finished in the last season’s ETS, Ronald Volker would post the third fastest time with Awesomatix driver Viljami Kutvonen making it four different manufacturers in the Top 4.

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Taking advantage of the early morning open practice on the 24 X 30 metre carpet track, Hagberg said a move to a stiffer spring on his Xray T4 ‘improved the car a lot’. The Swede said while the ‘nature of the track’ means understeer can never be completely dialled out of any car the changes he made resulted in a set-up that left his car ‘near perfect’ for the conditions. A two time ETS winner on carpet, the newly crowned nitro touring car World Champion will leave his car unchanged for Q3 adding it’s up to the driver now to get the time out of it.

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Setting the TQ pace for the first half of the 5-minute heat, Rheinard said his second round ‘was ok’. The Tamiya star was pleased with how his Much More powered TRF419 started out the run but said it pushed more and more as the run went on with the car becoming particularly bad in left corners. Planning a camber change for Q3, the German said ‘in the end it was very close’ between him and Hagberg and so anything could happen over the remaining two qualifiers.

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Feeling slightly better after getting 9-hours of sleep last night, Volker made a bad first lap. Half spinning his Yokomo and having to drive across the dots, the German believes the unexpected reaction of the car was due to his diff having not be broken in enough. Leaving Hagberg on his rear bumper, he said he was able to match both his & Rheinard’s pace but due to the track’s understeer inducing conditions he was unable to gain back any of the lost time. With ‘everyone suffering with understeer’, the 4-time winner of this race said they will change something for the next one in the hope they can somehow find just a little more steering than his rivals.

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Another driver to take advantage of the morning’s open practice, Kutvonen said he was able to evaluate his planned body change. Running Bittydesign’s new M15 yesterday he had planned to switch to the Nardò for Q2 but on trying it in the practice he found it made the car too aggressive. Sticking with the M15 he instead changed his swaybar settings making the front harder and the rear softer with this giving him a more manageable level of steering. Feeling the car is now near to their rivals, for the next one he will try to fine tune it by setting the car’s unique suspension to a harder spring setting. In contrast to the Finn’s competitive run his team-mate Freddy Sudhoff would suffer a heavy crash. With Marek Cerny getting it wrong on the main straight, last year’s podium finisher made heavy contact with the Xray. Describing the outcome of the crash as the worst damage he has done to a car since joining the Russian manufacturer, the German said he will have to build up a new car for the rest of the event such was the impact. Dionys Stadler would enjoy a good run for the team taking his A700 to the 7th fastest time.

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Suffering two bad opening laps without which he feels second would have been possible, Yannic Prumper would set the 5th fastest time. While he would set the second fastest lap of the round, the Yokomo driver’s DB7 was too edgy to drive at the beginning leading to his bad laps. With the narrow rear end causing the car to roll too much, his mechanic Toni Rheinard said they will make it wider for Q3 as well as switching over to short shocks.

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Completing the Top 6, Serpent’s Marc Fischer also had to deal with a car that was hard to drive at the beginning of the run. With this leading to a ‘couple of mistakes’, he said in the end it felt good. If he can get the car to work like that from start to finish he said Top 4 times are possible and to try and achieve this he will change shock spring and the stiffness of the S411’s geardiff.

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Behind Stadler, star of the recent World Championships Bruno Coehlo set the 8th fastest time. Copying Cerny’s set-up for today’s action, the Portuguese driver said his T4 had ‘much more steering’. Running a Top 3 pace before a mistake, he plans to leave his car unchanged and work on cleaning up his driving. Behind Coehlo, Xray designer Martin Hudy and Tamiya’s Viktor Wilck completed the Top 10.

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December 5, 2014

Another TQ run for Hoppe in Q2

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Having TQ’d the opening round of Pro Stock qualifying at the ETS season opener, ARC driver Lars Hoppe repeated the performance in Q2. The German topped the 5-minute qualifier ahead of former champion Martin Hofer despite having to drive the last minute with a collapsed roof. Again setting the fastest lap, Hoppe was on target for another 20-lap run until he came across an incident on the main straight which he was unable to avoid. Although he only lost around 1/2 a second, he would have to continue with a distorted bodyshell causing him to drop off his early pace. Running his R10 the same as he did in Q1, Hoppe said up to that it was pretty much a repeat of the first qualifier. Very happy with the cars performance he said for tomorrow the only change he would consider is going back from the Super lightweight Blitz GSF to the Lightweight version.

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Having had issues with prototype parts he fitted to his Schumacher for Q1, modifications to these for Q2 would allow the former champion to run a competitive second qualifier. Running his car standard in practice so to have a good base to work from for testing the prototype parts and topping the first timed practice, Hofer said a ‘mistake building’ it for qualifying left him struggling in the first round. With it all rectified for Q2 he said he now has a good base to work from and he is confident that they can be stronger for the final two qualifiers.

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Although he fixed the steering linkage issue he had on his Xray in Q1 when he was second fastest, reigning champion Marek Cerny would end up pulling off in Q2 with an ill handling car. Again having issues with left hand corners, the Czech driver who showed very well on his competitive Ride Modified class debut today, suspects a bad tire is the cause of his problem as having gone over his T4 completely can not find anything out of place.

In Formula, Jan Ratheisky would also make it 2 from 2 again taking his Xray X1 to a TQ run this time ahead of team-mate Francesco Martini.

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December 5, 2014

Euro Touring Series Rd1 – Friday Action

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December 5, 2014

Rheinard TQ’s opening qualifier at ETS

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Marc Rheinard will be hoping Day 1 of the new season of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series is a sign of things to come after the Tamiya driver TQ’d the opening round of qualifying from arch rival Ronald Volker. A very close encounter which saw last season’s Top 3 finishers all take turns at the top of the time screens in the Czech Republic, a last lap error by Volker would allow Rheinard to take the first of the weekend’s four qualifiers by a comfortable 1.476 seconds with Alexander Hagberg completing the Top 3 a further 3/10th off.

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Setting the fastest lap, Rheinard summed up the run as ‘fine’ having survived a moment on the straight half way into the 5-minute qualifier. Getting sideways on the straight after he hit the curbing on the entry he said this lost him up to 8/10th of a second but in terms of the rest of the run he was pretty happy with how it went. Running his aluminium chassis TRF419, the German said having a good set of tyres, unlike those he had in the final practice, the car was good again. Planning to keep the car the same for the morning’s second qualifier he said the only thing he would do is just refreshen up the shocks.

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Increasingly struggling to make conversation due to a worsening cough, Volker said being sick started to catch up with him having trouble focusing on his Yokomo around the track. Dominating this event last season on the way to his fourth ETS championship title, he said he was already over the limit trying to stay in control of the car with his concentration finally giving way on the last lap resulting in him rolling the BD7. Aside from the driver struggling, the German ace said the car had a little more understeer than he was expecting which while it made the car easy to drive left him lacking the outright pace he had in the final practice. Adding that it is the ‘details on track that will decide’ the rest of the weekend with the pace very close he said he will work on the driver first with a dose of medicine and an early night planned.

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Describing his Xray as being better than in practice, Hagberg said his ORCA powered T4 was very good for the first 3-minutes before dropping off. Running wide on the straight the Swede would catch a bump on the outside which to his surprise almost launched the car into the fencing with the moment costing him 7/10th of a second. Other than that he said the rest of the run was clean but added that for tomorrow morning he needs to work on getting the car to be more consistent for the full 5-minutes.

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Opting to run a brand new set of tyres for the first qualifying, most drivers having scrubbed in their allocated tyres during practice, Yannic Prumper would be disappointed with fourth. Expecting the track to be ‘stickier’ he said the tyres took too long to come in with his early laps being ‘too slow’. With his Much More powered BD7 on pace at the end, his fastest lap being his last, he said at least for now he has two scrubbed sets of tyres for the remaining qualifiers.

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Serpent’s Marc Fischer would set the fifth fastest time. Changes to the ackerman and rear diff on his S411 gave the former Hrotovice podium finisher a better car at the beginning of the qualifier but it again would develop understeer. Losing out on fourth after a couple of trips across the corner dots towards the end of the run, the German plans to revert to the set-up he ran in his open practice for Q2.

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Completing an impressive first day on his competitive step into Modified, 2-time defending ETS Pro Stock champion Marek Cerny posted the sixth fastest time. The Xray driver said his T4 was easy to drive but having seen a number of drivers make mistakes, one of such drivers being his super fast team-mate Bruno Coehlo, he decided it best to adapt a conservative approach to the run adding the outcome ‘was ok’. Planning to go with a similar approach tomorrow for Q2 with the aim of another safe round he said then he can look at pushing in the remaining two.

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Making the rear of his Tamiya narrower and running a different shock set-up Viktor Wilck would set the 7th fastest time. The Swede said while a little better he is ‘still too slow’. Asked what changes he would make to achieve this for Q2 he said he would give it thought overnight to try and come up with a potential solution.

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Taking his Awesomatix to the 8th fastest time Viljami Kutvonen described his opening heat as ‘ok but too slow’. Suffering ‘too much understeer’, the Finn said in practice his focus had been to get a good balance on his A700 and having now achieved that the plan for tomorrow was getting more steering. Having run a Bittydesign M15 body shell today he said for Q2 he will switch to the Italian company’s Nardo shell which should increase steering. Behind Kutvonen his team-mates Dionys Stadler and Freddy Südhoff completed the Top 10.

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In the Xray Pro Stock class, having set the pace in practice ARC’s Lars Hoppe was able to carry forward that form and TQ the first round of qualifying from defending champion Marek Cerny. Leaving his R10 2015 unchanged from the final practice, the German describing the car as working well, he was the only driver to complete 20 laps. Describing the run as ‘safe’ he added he didn’t hold back either as was clear from him setting the fastest lap of the round. With the car ‘working well’ and the track very consistent he said there is ‘no reason to make any changes’ for Q2.

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Cerny said he missed out on a potential TQ because of a ‘stupid mistake’. With his Xray struggling in left corners, something he intially put down to tyres, he said he discovered afterwards that the servo link was hitting the top deck effecting how linear the car’s steering was to the left. Having made changes to the car’s steering set-up for Q1 he said overall this improved the feeling and he is confident that with the link fixed for Q2 he should be good. Winner of this event last year, Jan Ratheisky was third closely followed by fellow Xray driver Valentin Hettrich. Ratheisky would take the first round of Formula qualifying, the defending champion set the fastest time from practice pace setter Herbert Weber with René Kölbel completing the Top 3.

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