Volker secures first TQ of the ETS Season #9
Reigning Yokomo Euro Touring Series Champion Ronald Volker has claimed his first overall TQ of Season #9. The Yokomo driver, who holds the record for the most pole position starts in the championship’s history, claimed his 19th Top Qualifier honours by making it three from three in the penultimate round of qualifying in Austria. Taking the first two qualifiers after mistakes from Bruno Coelho, Volker would again benefit from problems for Coelho, the Xray driver clearly irate with the driving of Marc Rheinard with whom he shares the points lead in overall championship standings. Holding the top spot on the time sheets for almost 2-minutes, a great drive from Awesomatix’s Viljami Kutvonen would see him post the third fastest time behind Volker and Coelho, the Top 3 separated by 8/10ths of a second.
‘I’m very happy, not just with the overall TQ but also with how the car now works as we improved it big time’, was Volker’s reaction to Q3. After rolling his LRP powered BD7 on the third lap, he added ‘with the roll I didn’t expect to get a TQ run’. Dropping behind Rheinard after his roll, he was particularly pleased at being able to get back passed his long standing rival adding that would not have been possible in the previous two qualifiers. Having adjusted their tyre prep and made ‘a small change to the car (set-up)’, Volker said with the improved pace he ‘feel(s) now (he is) able to fight for the win’.
Having made his thoughts very clear to Rheinard as they came off the driver stands, Coelho said ‘4-minutes I was stuck behind Rheinard and nobody (referring to the race officials) saw this. He opened for me on the last lap. It is like a joke.’
Asked for his opinion of the qualifier, a calmer Rheinard who ended up with a P5 said, ‘Again it started OK but it pushed more & more as the run went on’. Having changed to a harder diff oil to try cure the problem he said this didn’t appear to have worked as at the end of the 5-minutes it was still the same as in Q2. Commenting on the exchange of words with Coelho, the Portuguese driver allegedly telling the 4-time World Champion ‘that is the last time you do that to me, next time I take you out right away’, Rheinard said ‘I was struggling in the chicane and when I went to let him go he hit the wall by himself’. He continued ‘I also opened at the end of the straight to let him go but he wasn’t close enough’.
Describing his run as ‘the most consistent run (he has) ever driven’, Kutvonen was happy with his driving. Changing the geometry of his Awesomatix A800’s roll centres he said the car was ‘super stable’ while still having good corner speed. Happy to have been ‘so close to the top’, he said they ‘need to try to do something to find extra pace’ but he was not yet sure what that would be.
Posting another P4 run, Alexander Hagberg was ‘surprised (he) was so far off the TQ (time) as the car felt really good’. The Xray driver added ‘maybe the car is now too stable so we will work on the steering for the next one. We need to improve it but I think we are heading in the right direction’.
Completing the Top 6 was Juho Levanen, the factory Team Associated driver helped by Serpent’s Marc Fischer pulling a wheel off his new 4X while on a potential Top 4 run. Playing with chassis flex, the traction not as high as he had expected, the Finn said making his TC7 flex more had improved it a lot for Day 2. Suffering bad luck in Q2 with his time hampered by cars crashing in front of him, he plans to leave the car unchanged for the final qualifier. Feeling it is fast enough to make the A-Main he said he doesn’t want to take any risks as a 12th in Q2 means he needs a strong final qualifier. Behind the former ETS race winner Christopher Krapp took 7th followed by Dionys Stadler, Naoto Matsukura and Loic Jasmin.
In the Xray Pro Stock class it was ETS Germany winner Tony Streit who TQ’d the 3rd round, his Awesomatix the third different brand to top the time sheets in Wels. 1/10th of second behind the German was Norway’s Helge Johannessen with Jan Ratheisky completing the Top 3. Ratheisky would post a 2nd TQ run in the Serpent Formula class ahead of former Touring Car ace Andreas Myrberg and the Serpent of the manufacturer’s new designer David Ehrbar.
View complete event results here.
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