Volker tops seeding at MIBO International

Ronald Volker has topped seeding at the inaugural MIBO International, the factory Mugen driver quickest from Antoine Brunet and Christopher Krapp on a track all drivers are finding challenging.  Opening the second day of action in Hrotovice with two rounds of controlled practice, Volker put together the fastest three consecutive laps in both with his second attempt quicker by over 2/10ths.  Running a test version of Mugen’s next kit release, the German said they are ‘doing well’ and ‘testing every run new things with the flex’ of the car.  Looking to qualifying he added ‘a clean 5-minutes will not be that easy’.  He continued the end of the straight is only boards which is not forgiving, so a mistake here can cost you the whole run’.

Brunet summed up his morning as getting ‘better & better’.  The 25-year-old from France said the most significant change he has made so far is to switch from Xtreme’s Twister Speciale body to the original Twister resulting in more grip and in turn him having more confidence on the track.  On his chassis, the Xray driver said he has only made small adjustments and if he could now get a little more rotation mid corner the car would be perfect’.

Asked about his timed practice Krapp replied, ‘I’m still adapting to the track and conditions. We have lots of new parts on the car here so we are trying many things to get new data’.  Running a a new top deck and mid motor mount set-up on the car,  the Factory Yokomo driver said the key area needing work at the moment was a ‘lack of overall steering in the 180 corners’ adding the car is ‘lazy’ and resulting him lacking the pace to the two ahead of him.  The German added he also made a mistake by running his new tyres too late.  While they are getting better by the end of the final practice, he feels he should have run them earlier.

Seeding P4 for Qualifying, four of the five rounds on today’s schedule, Eric Dankel said his Mugen was ‘easy to drive, which is important for 5-minutes’.  Like Volker, he said track layout is challenging.  He said, ‘some spot are very dangerous if you want to go fast.  When you see the top guys like Ronald and Krapp making mistakes you know it is a challenging track’.  In saying that the German said his plan for Q1 is to change nothing on the car and just try to put together a clean run.  He said if the car proves difficult to drive them he will put glue on the tyre wall.

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