Volker tops free practice

Ronald Volker is the fastest man in Burgdorf with free practice now completed. The Yokomo star had a number of incidents during his FP4 run but still managed to lay down both the fastest outright lap and three consecutive laps.  Recording a 12.129 the Warm-Up race Top Qualifier topped the times sheets from Tamiya trio Jilles Groskamp, Marc Rheinard and Viktor Wilck.

Volker tried two cars, an old and a new one, in FP4. Although very loose over the opening two laps he said the older chassis felt the better of the two and this is the chassis he will now nominate as his race chassis, something which all drivers must do ahead of the two controlled practice runs which are up next.

Groskamp changed motor for the run, switching to an Orion with a thicker rotor.  The European Championship said this gave him more feeling which in return made the car smoother to drive. Having been the pace setter after P3, defending Champion Rheinard said they went the wrong way with set-up resulting in his TRF416 suffering a lot of understeer which got worse as the run went on.

Two drivers making big gains for the round where Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and Kyosho’s Christopher Krapp who set the 6th and 7th fastest time respectively. Hagberg, who was classified the winner of the Warm-up race, found his car was tweaked after round three and with the car straight again for FP4 is very happy with his LRP powered T3.  Over taking his team-mate shin Adachi on the time sheets, the Japanese driver failing to improve in P4, Krapp said his new speed came from simply reverting to the set-up he ran at the Warm-up.

Elsewhere Marc Fischer is fastest of the Corally team in 14th place while British National Champion Chris Grainger is best of the Schumacher drivers in 21st, two spots ahead of newly crowned back to back 1:12 World Champion Naoto Matsukara.  The star of last year’s European Championship at which he made the final, French driver Lucas Urbain is once again impressing at the control of his Losi setting the 20th fastest time of the 111 drivers present with the ageing JSX-R chassis.

Top 10 at end of Free Practice
(3 fastest consecutive laps)
1. Ronald Volker – 36.557
2. Jilles Groskamp – 36.804
3. Marc Rheinard – 36.902
4. Viktor Wick – 37.109
5. Atsushi Hara – 37.123
6. Alexabder Hagberg – 37.125
7. Christopher Krapp – 37.256
8. Steen Graversen – 37.343
9. Shin Adachi – 37.389
10.Juho Levanen – 37.391

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