January 10, 2015

Yokomo duo to go head to head in TQ decider

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Yokomo’s star drivers Ronald Volker and Yannic Prumper are to go head to head for the overall TQ at the DHI Cup while the battle for who will start second is wide open.  The penultimate qualifier at the Odense event again saw a number of drivers laying down a TQ pace but it was Volker who would make the least errors to take it with second going to HB’s Freddy Sudhoff after an impressive drive.  One of the drivers to set the early TQ pace Alexander Hagberg would despite a roll on his penultimate lap complete the Top 3 followed by Marc Rheinard and Martin Lissau.

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With five drivers running faster laps than him, Awesomatix’ Viljami Kutvonen posting the fastest lap, Volker said changes to his tyre prep and a small set up adjustment on his BD7 had improved his car but the German added it was not 100% as he would like to have it.  Having to work harder than normal to be fast he said while he topped the times by 3-seconds this was not a true refection of how close the field is and unlike his rivals his run didn’t contain mistakes.  For the final qualifier when he will need to see of the challenge of Prumper, admitting his fellow countryman has slight better pace, he will after a 10-minute discussion with engineer Yukijiro Umino make further changes to his tyre prep and set-up.

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Suffering a string of mistakes Prumper eventually decided to pull his BD7 off at just after the 3-minute mark.  With no complaints about the car he said the problem was simply down to too many mistakes from the driver.  Having taken Q1 when the pressure of his pace caused forced Volker to push over the limit and make a mistake he said he knows he has the speed to deny his team-mate the overall TQ, which would be a good start to his 2015 season with 2014 having been a rather fruitless season for the 21-year-old.

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Having went the wrong direction with a suspension change for Q2, Sudhoff said he just went the opposite way and the result was a car that was ‘very easy to drive’.  Suffering one moment when he had the car on three wheels through the fast chicane, he said they now just need to make some fine adjustments to find that last 1/10th of a second. Still in remote contact with Andy Moore and HB team manager Hiroyuki Kasuya he said hopefully they can find that for the final qualifier and allow him to battle for a good starting position in the final.

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Hagberg described the first 3-minutes as ‘very good’.  Changing his tyre prep he said the car was better than before but his problem this time was that when himself and Rheinard ran noise to tail, Hagberg in front, he lost his rhythm.  In the end he would make a ‘stupid mistake’ on his second last lap losing over a second in time as a result.  Happy with the progress made in the consistency of the car he said they were now down to the last minute of the race seeing a drop off in pace and he hopes further tyre prep changes would rectify this.

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Trying a different additive and again making his rear diff harder, Rheinard said these made little difference. The slightly dejected Tamiya driver said he will again go up in the stiffness of his TRF419 diff adding that with little to lose he will also use the last run to try out Protoform’s new Dodge Dart bodyshell.

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Running a heavily modified Awesomatix, Martin Lissau said while the round produced his best result, changes made to the car to try and help it with the bumps had made it super hard to drive.  Saying his ‘pace is really good for (him)’ the Dane plans to revert to his Q2 set-up when he was on a good run before suffering a spin.

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Completing the Top 6 Marc Fischer said the increase in the oil weight in the diff of his Serpent was ‘not good’.  Going to 8000w he will revert back to 6000w.  The German also found after the run that his rear left shock was loose on the S411 something he acknowledged wouldn’t have helped the car’s performance.  Behind Fischer Viljami was seventh fastest followed by Xray’s onroad chassis designer Martin Hudy.

View the event image gallery here.

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