Volker tops DHI Cup practice
Defending DHI Cup champion Ronald Volker got his quest for a sixth win at the famous Danish event off to a good start as he topped the final practice in Odense. With the second of the timed practice rounds seeing improvements from the Top 14 drivers the biggest improvement came from Volker to see him jump ahead of team-mate Yannic Prumper to see the German duo seeded 1-2 for qualifying. Knocking over 6/10ths of a second of his fastest three consecutive laps, Volker would top the times by 3/10ths from Prumper with Xray’s Alexander Hagberg improving his time by 3/10ths to jump ahead of Serpent’s Marc Fisher to complete the Top 3.
Making an oil change to the diff on his LRP powered BD7, Volker said the softer set-up helped him to improve his pace. With the change making the car easier to drive while retaining the same amount of steering he said it was good step forward but added they still need to go more. Describing his final practice as ‘a consistent run’, he said they would play safe for the first qualifier, which will bring Day 1 of the 15th running of the DHI Cup to a close, and leave the car unchanged and ‘hopefully’ he can capitalise from leading away the 10 car field.
Switching to a heavier oil in the rear diff of his Muchmore powered BD7, Prumper said while he went faster he didn’t like the feeling the stiffer diff gave. Also raising the rear camber link with a 1.5mm shim he will go back to what oil he ran in the previous practice, when he topped the times, while leaving the camber link change as is.
Hagberg was pleased with changes made to his ORCA powered T4. The Swede said they ‘still need to pick up the pace a little’ but they are headed in a good direction and now have a good base set-up for going into qualifying.
Having had issues with the roof of his bodyshell being too low in the earlier practices, changes to rectify this left Fischer’s S411 shell rubbing the track. Still improving his time by more than 2/10ths he said the change to softer shocks for the tracks bumps was a good improvement and he will stick with that for Q1. In terms of the rubbing he said a new set of front body posts should eliminate that issue.
Running the upper arms on his Awesomatix wider, Vijami Kutvonen said the change moved him ‘one step closer’ as he went fifth fastest and ahead of former team-mate Freddy Sudhoff. With the A700 rolling in the corners more the Finn said he had more grip. Still looking to improve the cars overall level of steering for Q1 he is considering a geardiff change to help with that.
Completing the Top 6 Sudhoff said his ‘pace is still good’ as again he ‘just played around with small changes to see how the car reacts’. Having only had one day of testing with his new PRO5 since making the switch to the HB team, he said while Volker opened up a bit of gap in the last practice it is all open and he predicts it should make for close action.
Top Danish driver Martin Lissau would again post the 7th fastest time ahead of Marc Rheinard. Rheinard said his Tamiya was still sliding around despite changing tyres and ruling out the problem being with the set-up said he ‘hope(s) they (tyres) get better on their second run’. In Pro Stock, drivers using a handout LRP motor, it was Xray’s Marek Cerny who topped the times from Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky with Denmark’s Martin Christensen completing the Top 3.
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