Volker Top Qualifier at MIBO International
As a two time winner of MIBO International, Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker will chase a third win of the Czech race tomorrow from pole position after claiming the overall TQ honours will a perfect day on the carpet. While it was Xray’s Adam Izsay who set the pace in Friday’s free practice, Volker made Saturday his own kicking off official proceedings by topping the 2 seeding rounds. Leading away the top heat of Modified qualifying, the German then completed a clean sweep securing the TQ in Q3 before capping off the day with a fourth TQ run in the penultimate round. With one last qualifier in the morning, Volker will look to repeat the 5 from 5 he took last year on his way to victory over Michal Orlowski. Behind the 2016 World Champion it is Iszay who holds second overnight but three drivers recorded runs to the second fastest times and between Iszay, the reigning Stock Champion who will defend that title from the TQ, MIBO International debutant Sören Sparbier, 2025 podium finisher Patrick Gollner it is still all to play for to see who starts directly behind Volker.
Reacting to his TQ Volker described it as ‘a perfect day pretty much.’ He continued, ‘the car actually improved for the last round. I copied one small detail from Patrick (Gollner), I also improved myself, and felt even more confident with the car.’ He added, ‘Overall I am happy that Patrick and Sören had really good runs as well and are fighting with Adam for P2. I’m satisfied both for me and them.’ Changing his LRP powered MTC3’s diff and spool position for Q3 asked how that changed felt he said, ‘the lap times where slower, the 5-minutes was slower but I think the track was just slower because everyone went a bit slower but the car feeling was good.’ On the change suggested by Gollner he said, ‘I changed the shock position for Q4, Patrick and Sören run it and I was running a different one. Surprisingly it gave me even more confidence and made me feel more confortable with the car. I was actually making driver mistakes because I was so confident with the car. I almost pushed too hard.’
Summing up his four qualifiers, Izsay said, ‘Stock was very good, the four rounds the car was great. In Modified I had a very good first two rounds, was close to Ronald being less than a second off in both. In the third round we tried a set-up change and it didn’t work as well so I reworked it back to my previous set-up for Q4 and had new tyres so I broke them in for tomorrow. Ronald already has the TQ so we’ll try to secure the second place on the grid.’ Asked if from second he felt he could put Volker under a bit of pressure in the finals, the Hungarian said, ‘It will be difficult but anything can happen. There will be so many lapped cars, so much travel, and to be in the lead is for sure more pressure than to follow, so anything can happen for sure.’
Ending the day with his best qualifier, P2 in Q4, Gollner said that having tested different additives over the day he returned back to the normal PHUB additive and it worked out in making him more consistent that Iszay and Sparbier in round 4 and he could get a P2. For Sparbier, having run a grey body all day, feeling the fatigue of 12-hours at the track, he switched to a 2 gram heavier body painted in his race colours scheme in order to try make it easier for him to see. While he got another P3 for the round it would be his slowest time of the day. Equal on points with Izsay, his rival has the current tie breaker counting a pair of seconds and a P4 so Q5 will be critical for the 19-year-old German.
