January 7, 2017

Chassis Focus – Naoki Akiyama

Chassis – Yokomo BD8
Motor – Yokomo RP 4.5T
ESC – Yokomo RPX
Batteries – Yokomo 5000mAh
Tires – LRP (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R
Remarks – Yokomo’s rising star Naoki Akiyama has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying here at the DHI Cup and is set to start third on the grid for tomorrow’s A-Main. Using an aluminium chassis, his BD8 is pretty standard, titanium screws and turnbuckles being the only options used by the Japanese driver, together with a 40g centre weight.

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January 6, 2017

Akiyama takes open qualifier at DHI ahead of Hagberg

Team Yokomo protege Naoki Akiyama opened qualifying at the 16th running of the DHI Cup with a TQ run, the Japanese driver setting the pace ahead of Xray’s Alexander Hagberg.  Benefiting from a difficult qualifier for reigning champion and practice Top seed Ronald Volker, Akiyama was over 6/10ths faster than Hagberg with Freddy Sudhoff completing the Top 3 a further half a second off.  For Volker, who twice rolled his Yokomo over the 5-minutes, Q1 would leave him with a P6 behind former team-mate Yannic Prumper and a much improved from practice Viljami Kutvonen.

While declaring it was a ‘good result’, Akiyama was quick to make the point, ‘I don’t have the pace, Ronald is faster’.  The 17-year-old was to be actually fractionally faster than his World Champion team-mate on outright lap time, the fastest lap of Q1 being posted by Xray’s Jan Ratheisky.  Describing his BD8 as ‘good’, he said there is more to come from the driver, him continuing to feel he is still not driving smooth enough.

Giving a summary of his P2 run, Hagberg said, ‘the beginning was a disaster. It was like there was dust on the tyres because the first couple of minutes I had no traction’.  The Xray driver said once the tyres came in his T4 was ‘very good’ and he ‘could close the gap for a good recovery’.  For tomorrow, the 2016 podium finisher said ‘we need to check our tyre prep or be careful on the warm-up laps’ to ensure he doesn’t have a repeat of his lack of traction at the start of Q2.

‘I could fix the problem of the car being edgy to drive in practice and the car is consistent now’, was Sudhoff’s response to how Q1 had gone.  The Awesomatix driver added, ‘I hit the tape twice and got up on two wheels but despite this it was a good run’.  Feeling they now have a ‘good base to work from for tomorrow’, he said ‘we already have a few small changes planned for tomorrow to further improve the car but for sure we will try a different tyre prep’.

Having not been overly happy with his 3-lap pace in seeding practice, Prumper said on opening qualifying with a P4, ‘over 5-minutes its not so bad’.  Making a additive change for Q1, he added his VBC was ‘a little better’.  Declaring ‘4th is ok for sure’, the German, who qualified second overall at the 2015 DHI Cup, was on target for a Top 3 time until a small mistake on the penultimate lap. Looking to Q2, he said ‘I might keep the car the same and just try to get rid of the mistake’.

‘Much better than practice’ was Kutvonen’s reaction to getting a P5 out of the first qualifier.  Only 10th fastest in seeding, the ETS season opener podium finisher, said ‘that set-up didn’t work and I completely changed the car for Q1’.  Asked what was the biggest difference between the two set-ups was he said it was ‘small changes everywhere’. Describing his start to the heat as ‘slow at the beginning’, the Finn said he found his rhythm at the end and is now confident with the car again, plus with a few small set-up changes planned to further improve the car he is looking forward to a much better day.

Explaining his P6 for the opening heat, Volker said, ‘It started quite good but then got a little edgy and I traction rolled’. He continued, ‘trying to catch back up the lost time I then rolled over again’. Describing his LRP powered BD8 as ‘too difficult to drive’ the 7 time DHI Cup champion said, ‘we need to consider a bigger set-up change for tomorrow’.

View the event image gallery here.

January 6, 2017

Chassis Focus – Alexander Hagberg

Chassis – Xray T4 ’17
Motor – ORCA RT 4.5T
ESC – ORCA VX3
Batteries – ORCA 6300mAh
Tires – LRP (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Bodyshell – Protoform LTC-R
Remarks – Xray factory driver Alexander Hagberg is running the ’17 version of the Slovakian made T4 here at the DHI Cup in Odense. His car features an aluminium chassis, an aluminium steering system and low friction belts. The Swede’s T4 is also equipped with Hiro Seiko titanium and aluminium screws and Avid bearings. The wing of choice on his LTC-R body is the hard version of the Protoform wing.

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January 6, 2017

Volker from team-mate Akiyama in DHI Cup seeding

Ronald Volker has topped seeding practice at the DHI Cup presented by LRP in Denmark. The reigning champion was fastest from his Yokomo team-mate Naoki Akiyama being the only driver to run 3-laps in 38-seconds. Fastest by almost 3/10ths from Akiyama, Volker would set his quickest time in the final practice with Akiyama having topped the times in the first of the two runs. Also improving his time in the second run, Alexander Hagberg would complete the Top 3 followed by his Xray team-mate Jan Ratheisky. While 2016 podium finisher Viljami Kutvonen would struggle to only the 10th fastest time, Awesomatix team-mate Freddy Sudhoff would round out the Top 5 times ahead of the VBC of Yannic Prumper.

‘I’m satisfied with how the car went’ was Volker’s reaction after practice. Chasing an 8th DHI Cup title this weekend, which marks the 16th running of the event, he added ‘we kept changing the set-up each run and managed to improve, the grip went a lot higher than expected with the car lifting tyres on the long corners’. Overall happy with the car for the final practice he said ‘it is a little edgy at the beginning of the run so we’ll probably adapt the tyre prep for Q1’.

With the biggest change to be made to his BD8 over the practice rounds being a switch to a harder diff, up & coming Japanese star Akiyama said the car was ‘better’ after the change. Having made his DHI Cup debut last year, finishing 6th, the 17-year-old plans to leave the car unchanged for Q1 feeling his driving is where the greatest improvement will come from. Running a ‘very different set-up’, he said the track which was designed by Volker has a ‘good flow’ but for the 5-minute qualifiers he needs ‘to be more smooth’ and try to get through it with ‘no mistakes’.

‘A bit better, the car feels pretty balanced’ was how Hagberg summed up his ORCA powered T4. Racing in his 13th consecutive DHI Cup, all of which he has been accompanied by his father Bosse, he added, ‘we’ll see how pace is over minutes but it feels alright’. Describing the traction levels as ‘medium-high’ and describing the track as ‘fairly open compared to last year’, the Swede said for Q1 they will make some ‘minor tweaks’ to the set-up but overall the car ‘feels alright’.

With no Formula class at the DHI Cup to dominate, ETS Formula Champion Ratheisky said his P4 pace was ‘a lot better than expected’. Asked about his car the German said ‘I just drive it and have fun’. In terms of changes to the set-up he said the only thing he changed between the two rounds was to ‘just drink coffee with milk & sugar’. Describing the layout as ‘very good’ he is confident his 3-lap pace is a true reflection of his pace saying, the car can run that time consistently for all the run’.

‘So far so good’ was how Sudhoff summed up what is his first race outing since the ETS season opener in early December. Running Awesomatix’ A800, he explained the preproduction run of the first of their new A800X kits has just started and while they have an example of the car here they don’t have enough spare parts to race it. Running his car ‘nearly the same as at the ETS’, he said the big thing is that ‘the driving style is a little different due to the tyres’, the DHI Cup using a handout LRP tyre for touring car. Looking to qualifying he said, ‘I need to make it a little more stable in the long sweepers which is our weak point for now’ concluding ‘on this track consistency is important’.

Prumper described practice as having gone ‘so so’. The German added ‘the car is to edgy and is always on two wheels and I don’t know what to change anymore’. Running a different but unchanged VBC chassis to that which he used at the ETS season opener he said ‘there is a lot traction, its normally not that high here’. For the first of the qualifiers, which will bring Day 1 of the event to a close tonight, he said, “I will keep the same set-up and change tyre prep but don’t know what exactly’.

View the event image gallery here.