Prumper takes Q1 at German ETS
Yannic Prumper has taken the opening round of qualifying at the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Germany. The Yokomo driver brought Day 1 of the second round of the championship to a close by topping the times from team-mate Ronald Volker and last year’s event winner Alexander Hagberg in a ultra close encounter which saw the Top 5 covered by just one-second.
Having suffered a servo issue in the final practice but felt his carbon chassis BD7 had good potential Prumper was very happy to kick off qualifying at his home event with a TQ run. Having been content to run his car unchanged other than with a new servo, Prumper said the decision by long time mentor & mechanic Toni Rheinard to change to a softer 5k oil diff and move the shock position in one hole had left him with a’really good’ car and all he had to do was put in a clean round. Describing it as ‘a good start to the weekend’ he said he had no plans to change the car for Q2 in the morning adding he would just try to carry on where he left off.
Volker said said he was ‘not unhappy with second’ especially when only his team-mate was faster. Having topped timed practice, the defending champion set down the inital TQ pace until halfway into the 5-minutes when he made contact with the boards after coming off the main straight. Sending his BD7 into a half spin, the German would lose 1.5-seconds. Determined to try make up some of the lost time he said he ‘gave (his) best’ and considering how tightly packed the Top 5 ended up he was happy with his recovery. With his pace, him sharing the fastest lap time with Hagberg, giving him good confidence for Q2 he said having suffered from on power understeer in the qualifier they would hopefully also cure this by making the switch from running double joint rear shafts to standard versions.
‘Not enjoyable to drive but luckily I had a clean run’, that was how Hagberg summed up his opening qualifier. The Xray driver said his T4 was ‘very difficult to drive’ with the rear end still loose with the car wanting to spin out. While the car improves over the run, his fastest lap coming at 4-minutes, he said he needs to make the car easier to drive for Q2.
Swapping position at the top of the timing screens with Prumper, Marc Rheinard would end up fourth after contact with the curbing putting his Tamiya into a roll. Describing his error which cost him over one & a half seconds as ‘stupid’ he said the run was going really well until he came up on Hagberg afer which he just drove shitty leading to his mistake. While his car left to turn different left to right, he said overall his TRF419 was good and the potential is there with just really small changes now needed. One such change he is considering is the mounting position of his Protoform LTC-R bodyshell with the current one mounted quite far back.
Fitting all new electrics to his Schumacher after his lack of power in the final practice, Elliot Harper claimed the honour of the fastest qualifier of the drivers sporting new team gear this weekend. Setting the 5th fastest time the British driver, who is making his first international outing for his new team, said it was ‘a good start to the meeting’. Fitting a stiffer rear brace to the car for Q1 which would normally give him more steering he said with the alu chassis it made the car too stiff. For Q2 he will remove the brace and try to improve the steering with another set-up change.
Completing the Top 6 on his debut for Serpent having impressed in timed practice, Viktor Wilck said his run simply contained ‘too many mistakes’. In terms of his S411, the Swede said he went with the wrong diff set-up. Running too light of oil he said it went off after 2-minutes.
Seventh fastest ahead of Loic Jasmin and Bruno Coelho, Christopher Krapp also suffered with his car going off after 2-minutes. The factory Kyosho driver said the run started out really well with him in contention for a Top 3 time but then the car ‘started losing steering like hell’. Fighting with the car the former ETS race winner said ‘the last minute was horrible’. With the practice runs only 4-minutes he believes in the 5th minute of the qualifier he overheated his tyres and for Q2 he will make a camber change.
In the Xray Pro Stock class defending champion Marek Cerny recovered from a difficult practice to claim the opening qualifier. Describing his car as having been ‘so so in practice’, the Czech driver said with help from Xray team-mate’s Hagberg and Francesco Martini they came up with a good set-up for Q1. With the car easy to drive he said he really enjoyed the run. Starting to fell unwell as the day came to a close, Cerny said his only focus for Q2 was to get a good nights sleep so as to hopefully feel better for the morning. Behind Cerny, team-mate Jan Ratheisky set the second fastest time followed by Mike Gosvig. Gosvig said after ‘bad descisions’ in Q1 at the opening round of the ETS which saw him put his car on its roof, he just took it easy. As the run progressed he pushed harder and planning to fit harder spring to the rear of his T4 for Q2 he is feeling confident for Day 2 after his solid start to qualifying.
Formula would produce a super close Q1 with class rookie Bruno Coelho making defending champion Ratheisky work for his customary top spot on the timing sheets. Setting the fastest lap, Portuguese touring car ace Coelho would lose out on the TQ on the final lap with Ratheisky putting in a better lap to snatch it by 0.033 of a second. Behind the two Xray drivers Project HP1’s Roman Pichler would complete the Top 3.
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