Volker to seek sixth DHI Cup win as Top Qualifier
Defending champion Ronald Volker will aim for a sixth DHI Cup victory from pole position tomorrow after the Yokomo driver secured the overall TQ in Denmark this evening. Going head to head with team-mate Yannic Prumper in the fourth & final qualifier, Volker would claim his third TQ run just 0.547 seconds ahead of Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard. Struggling with understeer Prumper could only manage 3rd for the round, almost 2-seconds off the TQ pace but still managed to make it a 1-2 for Yokomo. Rheinard good finish to qualifying allowed him to secure third ahead Xray’s Alexander Hagberg while Freddy Sudhoff, debuting his new HB, completes the top half of the grid for the 15th running of famous season opening event.
Make changes to his tyre prep and set-up for the final qualifier, Volker said he felt a big difference in the balance of his LRP powered BD7 which he said compared to Q3 was ‘easy to drive’. Again while unable to match the pace of his rival’s fastest laps, a slightly resurgent Marc Rheinard posting the quickest lap of 18.034 seconds, Volker said he knew if he kept his run free of mistakes his overall pace would give him another TQ run and he focused on that. Aware of Rheinard closing the gap as the 5-minute came to a conclusion he said by the end of the run he was on ‘maximum push’ as highlighted by his last lap being his fastest of the qualifier. While he knew only Prumper could deny him the overall TQ he was aware that should Rheinard top the last round it would put his arch rival second on the grid ahead of Prumper this in itself a motivating factor for him to TQ the round. ‘Happy to start out another year at the DHI Cup with the overall TQ’, he said for the final they will make a very small change to give him a feeling somewhere in between what he had in Q3 and Q4 adding he wanted to have just a little more outright pace in reserve for the finals should he need it.
Prumper said he was ‘slightly too slow’ and he compounded the lack of pace with a mistake. Making no changes to his car, he said for some reason the car started to ‘push’. Running heavier oil in his rear shocks for tomorrow he will make the front and rear the same with a lighter oil than he was running in the front. Asked about challenging his team-mate in the finals he said the track offered a number of passing spots and he would ‘for sure push Ronald for the win’.
A much more inspired Rheinard said he was ‘surprised’ at how well the switch to Protoform’s new Dodge Dart bodyshell had worked out. Also running a softer shock set-up, the front and rear now filled with the same weight oil, he said the body made his car more stable while giving him the same level of steering as before. Fitting a new diff to the car he said having not bench run it it took a while to come in losing him some time early on. Describing the car as fast but still really hard to drive on power he said Q4 was the best its been and he will stick with everything the same for A1. Asked if he could pressure the two Yokomos, the 1:12 World Champion said ‘I just hope Yannic can put pressure on Ronald’.
Hagberg said his T4 was again good at the start but continues to drop off pace towards the end of the 5-minutes. Able to run a TQ pace he said the drop off lost him too much time and with the drivers much closer on pace this time round that left him 4th costing him 3rd on the grid. While a little better than it was in Q3, the Nitro Touring Car World Champion said he needs to figure out something for tomorrow adding he will be making some sort of set-up change having already gone down the route of changing his tyre prep.
Changing the roll bars on his LRP powered PRO5, Sudhoff said the car was really good and he was able to push much harder, as highlighted by his fastest lap time which as just 0.034 off Rheinard’s, but ultimately he ended up pushing too much and over doing it leading to a number mistakes. With limited amount of spares he said he took the decision to pull off before he broke anything. ‘Really happy’ with fifth on the grid he said in terms of the car he has no plans to change anything but instead drive it within its limits although he might try a different tyre prep, something he will decide nearer to the time of A1.
Completing the Top 6 on the grid will be Serpent’s Marc Fischer, a strong start to qualifying fading out over the final two qualifiers with him pulling off in Q4 after a number of mistakes. Behind him the rest of the grid is made up of Martin Lissau, Martin Hudy, last year podium finisher Viljami Kutvonen and the Tamiya of Danish driver Patrick Folman.
In Super Stock, Marek Cerny secured the overall TQ for Xray with three TQ runs from team-mate and Q3 pace setter Jan Ratheisky. Making it an Xray Top 3 on the grid Danish driver Mike Gosvig took his T4 to third with the Serpent of 1:8 Onroad racer Merlin Depta set to line up fourth.
View complete onroad event results here.
View the event image gallery here.
