Volker and Zalewski top seeding at MIBO International
Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker and Xray’s Bartek Zalewski are the top seeds at MIBO International, both drivers laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps of their respective tracks in the Czech Republic. On the onroad track the battle between the races 2 previous champions continued with Volker maintaining his slightest of advantages over the Schumacher of Michal Orlowksi, 4/1o0ths of a second all that separates them. Behind them the Xray of former MIBO Stock Champion Adam Iszay set the third fastest time ahead of the Yokomo of Christopher Krapp and new 2025 Mugen Seiki signing Patrick Gollner. On the offroad side of the event, defending 4WD Champion Zalewski pulled off the double topping seeding in both 2WD and 4WD. In 2WD it was recent EOS winner Marcus Kaerup who was his closest rival, the Team Associated driver over 2/10ths off with a similar gap back to the Schumacher of Daniel Kobbevik in P3. It was the Sworkz of Micha Widmaier who got closest to Zalewski in 4WD with Kaerup completing the P3.
‘A good day so far’, was Volker’s reaction to taking the top seed honours ahead of the day’s 4 rounds of qualifying. Winner of the inaugural MIBO International in 2023, the German has been making small changes to his pre-production MTC3 every run to get a better understand of the car adding it seems to work well not matter what changes he makes. Making a diff set-up change for the final practice run, he said this resulted in the car being less consistent over the 5-minutes so he will go back to his CP1 diff for Q1. Having a revival in form since the switch to the MTC3, which is expected to go on sale in April, Volker said he is enjoying racing here against Orlowski adding it is nice to be challenging him but knows he needs to keep finding more from the car to maintain that status.
Orlowski said, ‘Me and Ronald are having a nice battle, we are very close on pace and I am looking forward to battling with him for the rest of the weekend. He is very competitive with the new car.’ On his own car, the 1:12 World Champion said, ‘we are testing a lot of things on the car. I am really enjoying the track layout and the grip.’ The only concern for the defending Touring Car Champion going into qualifying is traffic. He cautioned, ‘there is a lot of traffic so I hope myself and Ronald don’t have too much trouble with it.’
Making the step up to Modified this year as well as continuing to complete here in Pro Stock, of which he is the Top Seed ahead of Martin Hudy, Iszay said he needs to find more steering to close the gap on the front guys. Changing the car each run the 22-year-old from Hungary said it is getting better every time and for Q1 he hopes a further change will have the desired effect in terms of delivering more steering.
‘Everything is working well, I am extremely happy with my speed’, was how Zalewski summed up his morning performance. While making small set-up changes to each of his buggies, he said the focus this morning has been on his ESC settings. Joining electronics newcomers Team Cayote for 2025, he said the adjustments to the speedo have brought the biggest improvement in how the buggies feels to drive. His closest 2WD rival, Kaerup described the morning as having gone ‘alright’ saying they made a lot of changes focused on getting the cars good for 5-minutes. While happy with his 2WD, he said they need to improve the 4WD. ‘A bit stuck in the corner’, he said they need to get more rotation dialled in.
Fastest in 2WD after yesterday’s five rounds of free practice, ending seeding 3rd fastest Kobbevik said, ‘it will be interesting to see the true pace of everyone in qualifying.’ The Norwegian said they continue to make small changes to both buggies but admitted, ‘we are still a bit stronger in 2WD and need bigger changes in 4WD.’
Second fastest in 4WD, Widmaier said they had spent the morning working on 5-minute pace and the consistency of the buggy but added he expects a difficult qualifying given the challenges of the track. In 2WD he said while his buggy is ‘not too bad to drive, its not too fast’ and he is ‘looking for more pace’ admitting ‘there are lots of fast guys here.’ Team-mate Neumann, the defending 2WD Champion said his buggy was edgy in the first seeding round and then had understeer in the second one and finding a good balance for used tyres will be challenging.
