Volker handed easy Leg 1 win
Ronald Volker was handed a relatively easy win in the opening A-Main at the Yokomo Euro Touring Series this morning in the Czech Republic after the two drivers starting behind him clashed on the opening lap. A coming together between Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and Awesomatix’s Freddy Sudhoff allowed Volker to take a 1.3 second win over Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard with Yokomo’s Naoto Matsukura completing the Top 3.
Top Qualifier for the race, Volker said having been handed breathing space on the opening lap he just focused on maintaining that gap for the rest of the 5-minute encounter. Describing his Yokomo BD7 as a little tricky he said he had some bobbles which focused him to tidy up his driving so as not to allow Rheinard to get to close. While his great rival did close the gap to 8/10ths of a second, Volker was able to respond and get the gap to over 1-second. Chasing his ninth ETS career win today, Volker said his objective for the next one is to get another good clean start.
Rheinard described his race as ‘OK’. The 3-time World Champion said even though he got lucky on the first lap, starting from fourth on the grid is too far back to be able to mount a serious challenge on Volker as the gap is already too hard to close. Although he did make some in roads into Volker’s lead a mistake over the corner dots extended the gap to 1.4 seconds and with only a minute to go Rheinard said he gave up not wanting to risk his second place.
Setting the fastest lap of the race as he recovered from the first lap contact with Hagberg, Sudhoff summed up the race by saying ‘tough luck as always’. Getting down the inside of Hagberg who ran wide, he said he was really happy with his start but at the next corner the Swede came down his inside flipping the Awesomatix. Describing his A700L EVO as ‘super fast and super consistent’, Sudhoff said hopefully for Leg 2 he will get the opportunity to fight with Volker for the win.
Hagberg took full responsibility for the incident saying it was ‘my mistake’. As an aftermath to the coming together with Sudhoff, the Xray driver suffered further contact with himself and fellow country man Viktor Wilck both suffering body tucks which dropped them to the back of the field. Hagberg would eventually finish 8th while Wilck decided to pull up after 4 laps. Posting a faster lap time than the winner, Hagberg said everything should be fine for Leg 2.
In the Xray Pro Stock class defending champion Marek Cerny headed an Xray 1-2. There was drama just before the start for Top Qualifier Jan Asmer after he suffered a problem with the electrics in his car. While the Serpent driver still made the race, Race Director Scotty Ernst delaying the start, Asmer had to borrow a car but the speedo of that car was only set at 75% power so he did not have any race pace with Cerny going to the front on Lap 2. Challenged hard by Schumacher’s Marin Hofer, who set the fastest lap of the race, the Czech driver got the break he needed on the start of lap 12 when the former champion rolled his Mi-5 coming on straight. This allowed Tobias Vogel through to 2nd where the German would stay to the finish.
An entertaining Formula race saw a very popular win for well known Austrian Touring Car driver Thomas Pumpler. Starting from 5th on the grid, he took his Speed Passion chassis to victory over defending champion & Top Qualifier Jan Asmer with TOP Racing’s Roman Pichler completing the Top 3.
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