Volker claims seventh DHI Cup win
Ronald Volker has taken his tally of wins at the famous DHI Cup to seven. The 16th running of the Danish event, Volker secured what would be his third consecutive win by taking the opening two A-Mains in Odense. Top Qualifier for the race, which marks the first international touring car race of the season, the German took A1 with ease but in A2 Awesomatix driver Viljami Kutvonen. After the strong start however Kutvonen faded a little leaving Volker celebrating the start of the 2016 season with overall victory. In A3 Kutvonen would enjoy a straight forward win over Alexander Hagberg and former winner Adrian Berntsen to secure second overall. Finishing on the same points as his team-mate Bruno Coelho, the tie breaker would leave Hagberg to complete the podium.
‘An awesome way to start the year’, was how Volker summed up his latest DHI win. First winning the event back in 2007, he said ‘In A2 Viljami was strong at the beginning and with my car a little loose in the fast corners I had to keep tight lines so as not to give him any opportunities for a pass’. With his LRP powered BD7 having the edge over the similarly powered A800 on the right side of the track, Volker said this helped him ‘break the pressure’ Kutvonen was able to apply on the left section. Thanking Yokomo and LRP, in particular his engineer Yukijiro Umino and LRP’s Ales Dobnikar, for their ongoing support the reigning ETS Champion said the win was a good boost going into Round 2 of the championship in Germany next month.
‘I’m really happy how the new car is working but today Ronald did the better job’, was Kutvonen’s reaction to finishing 2nd overall, a result he also achieved in 2014. Struggling to match Volker’s early A1 pace, the Finn said a tyre prep change for A2 worked ‘pretty good’ and he was able to run fast laps at the start. Able to pressure Volker he said ‘he didn’t make mistakes’ so I couldn’t find a way passed. Setting the fastest lap of the race, he said towards in the final part of the race his pace dropped off due to what he suspects was his rear tyres overheating. Encouraged by the run of A-Main appearances he has been able to achieve with the new A800 and looking forward to building on those results at the next ETS, he said ‘here we were losing too much time in the slow corners so we need to work on with tight corners but overall I’m really happy things are working and its a good result to start off the 2016 season’.
Having made the podium also last year at the DHI Cup, but second on that occassion, Hagberg said third ‘was the best I could do considering our pace’. The Swede said ‘the car was not brilliant for A3 but I managed to hold off Adrian (Berntsen)’. Enjoying a ‘good clean race’ with the Norwegian, the European Champion said ‘we didn’t have the pace to win this weekend and that is how it is sometimes’. He continued ‘I’m hoping for better at the ETS but I am more confident our car will be competitive on the Volante tyre’. Behind Hagberg, Coelho would mark his DHI Cup debut with 4th thanks to a pair of thirds in the opening A-Mains while Gizmo’s Berntsen would claim 5th for the new Danish company at their home event.
In the Super Stock, Tim Benson would stamp his authority on the event. Taking the TQ, the Kyosho driver drove perfect in the first two Mains to give the TF7 its first international race win. With the German able to sit out A3, last year’s winner Marek Cerny held off Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky with the pair joining Benson on the podium in that order.
View the complete touring car event results here.
View the event image gallery here.
