Volker cruises to A1 win at DHI Cup

Defending DHI Cup Champion Ronald Volker moved in on a sixth title at the Danish event this morning as he cruised to an unchallenged win in the opening A-Main.  Expecting a strong challenge from his Yokomo team-mate Yannic Prumper that never materialised as Prumper got out of shape on Lap 2.  While Volker pulled clear taking the win by almost 5-seconds, the battle of the race would be for second with Xray’s Alexander Hagberg finding a way passed Prumper.  Despite a roll at the first corner, HB’s Freddy Sudhoff would finish fourth just 3/10ths off Prumper.

Volker said right after the start he got lucky as Prumper struggled with his car and ‘something happened’ to the No.3 starting Tamiya of Marc Rheinard.  Despite setting the fastest lap of the race, outright pace having evaded the German in qualifying, he said his LRP powered BD7 had a lot of steering with the rear end feeling very loose.  While it improved over the 5-minutes, his fastest lap coming on lap 19 of 25, he said he couldn’t push and had circumstance been different in terms of his rivals he said he could have found himself under a lot of pressure.  Adding ‘overall I shouldn’t complain as I got what I wanted from the race but for A2 we need to make a small tweak to our tyre prep’.

‘Pretty good’ was Hagberg’s response to how his race had gone.  Starting from fourth on the grid, the Swede said his T4 was ‘very good at the start as always’ and having caught up to Prumper he was was able to take advantage of a mistake to get passed. Again having issues with the car’s pace dropping off towards the end of the race he said he knew he was never got to be able to catch up Volker and he declared himself ‘pretty happy’ with second.

Prumper said his ‘car was terrible’.  Making a shock change after qualifying he said this left his Muchmore powered BD7 very loose in the rear and this was compound by his rear right tyre having come partly unglued.  For A2 the 21-year-old said he will go back to the soft front, harder rear shock oil set-up he ran yesterday.

Sudhoff said he got ‘quite lucky’ in taking fourth.  Traction rolling at the first corner dropping to last he said when he arrived at the hairpin it was full of cars on their roofs and he managed to make back up the lost positions.  Finding the track conditions very different to yesterday he said his PRO5 was edgy to drive and he plans to make a set-up change as a result for A2.

Not finishing the race, Rheinard said ‘I just messed up’.  Hitting the curbing on the first lap he found himself in the middle of the pack and after further incidents he opted to pull over after just 2 laps.  Describing his Tamiya TRF419 as feeling ‘not so bad in the warm-up’ the former DHI Cup winner said he could ‘hopefully make a better start to the next one’.

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Volker to seek sixth DHI Cup win as Top Qualifier

Defending champion Ronald Volker will aim for a sixth DHI Cup victory from pole position tomorrow after the Yokomo driver secured the overall TQ in Denmark this evening.  Going head to head with team-mate Yannic Prumper in the fourth & final qualifier, Volker would claim his third TQ run just 0.547 seconds ahead of Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard.  Struggling with understeer Prumper could only manage 3rd for the round, almost 2-seconds off the TQ pace but still managed to make it a 1-2 for Yokomo.  Rheinard good finish to qualifying allowed him to secure third ahead Xray’s Alexander Hagberg while Freddy Sudhoff, debuting his new HB, completes the top half of the grid for the 15th running of famous season opening event.

Make changes to his tyre prep and set-up for the final qualifier, Volker said he felt a big difference in the balance of his LRP powered BD7 which he said compared to Q3 was ‘easy to drive’.  Again while unable to match the pace of his rival’s fastest laps, a slightly resurgent Marc Rheinard posting the quickest lap of 18.034 seconds, Volker said he knew if he kept his run free of mistakes his overall pace would give him another TQ run and he focused on that.  Aware of Rheinard closing the gap as the 5-minute came to a conclusion he said by the end of the run he was on ‘maximum push’ as highlighted by his last lap being his fastest of the qualifier. While he knew only Prumper could deny him the overall TQ he was aware that should Rheinard top the last round it would put his arch rival second on the grid ahead of Prumper this in itself a motivating factor for him to TQ the round.  ‘Happy to start out another year at the DHI Cup with the overall TQ’, he said for the final they will make a very small change to give him a feeling somewhere in between what he had in Q3 and Q4 adding he wanted to have just a little more outright pace in reserve for the finals should he need it.

Prumper said he was ‘slightly too slow’ and he compounded the lack of pace with a mistake.  Making no changes to his car, he said for some reason the car started to ‘push’.  Running heavier oil in his rear shocks for tomorrow he will make the front and rear the same with a lighter oil than he was running in the front. Asked about challenging his team-mate in the finals he said the track offered a number of passing spots and he would ‘for sure push Ronald for the win’.

A much more inspired Rheinard said he was ‘surprised’ at how well the switch to Protoform’s new Dodge Dart bodyshell had worked out.  Also running a softer shock set-up, the front and rear now filled with the same weight oil, he said the body made his car more stable while giving him the same level of steering as before.  Fitting a new diff to the car he said having not bench run it it took a while to come in losing him some time early on.  Describing the car as fast but still really hard to drive on power he said Q4 was the best its been and he will stick with everything the same for A1.  Asked if he could pressure the two Yokomos, the 1:12 World Champion said ‘I just hope Yannic can put pressure on Ronald’.

Hagberg said his T4 was again good at the start but continues to drop off pace towards the end of the 5-minutes.  Able to run a TQ pace he said the drop off lost him too much time and with the drivers much closer on pace this time round that left him 4th costing him 3rd on the grid. While a little better than it was in Q3, the Nitro Touring Car World Champion said he needs to figure out something for tomorrow adding he will be making some sort of set-up change having already gone down the route of changing his tyre prep.

Changing the roll bars on his LRP powered PRO5, Sudhoff said the car was really good and he was able to push much harder, as highlighted by his fastest lap time which as just 0.034 off Rheinard’s, but ultimately he ended up pushing too much and over doing it leading to a number mistakes.  With limited amount of spares he said he took the decision to pull off before he broke anything.  ‘Really happy’ with fifth on the grid he said in terms of the car he has no plans to change anything but instead drive it within its limits although he might try a different tyre prep, something he will decide nearer to the time of A1.

Completing the Top 6 on the grid will be Serpent’s Marc Fischer, a strong start to qualifying fading out over the final two qualifiers with him pulling off in Q4 after a number of mistakes.  Behind him the rest of the grid is made up of Martin Lissau, Martin Hudy, last year podium finisher Viljami Kutvonen and the Tamiya of Danish driver Patrick Folman.

In Super Stock, Marek Cerny secured the overall TQ for Xray with three TQ runs from team-mate and Q3 pace setter Jan Ratheisky.  Making it an Xray Top 3 on the grid Danish driver Mike Gosvig took his T4 to third with the Serpent of 1:8 Onroad racer Merlin Depta set to line up fourth.

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Yokomo duo to go head to head in TQ decider

Yokomo’s star drivers Ronald Volker and Yannic Prumper are to go head to head for the overall TQ at the DHI Cup while the battle for who will start second is wide open.  The penultimate qualifier at the Odense event again saw a number of drivers laying down a TQ pace but it was Volker who would make the least errors to take it with second going to HB’s Freddy Sudhoff after an impressive drive.  One of the drivers to set the early TQ pace Alexander Hagberg would despite a roll on his penultimate lap complete the Top 3 followed by Marc Rheinard and Martin Lissau.

With five drivers running faster laps than him, Awesomatix’ Viljami Kutvonen posting the fastest lap, Volker said changes to his tyre prep and a small set up adjustment on his BD7 had improved his car but the German added it was not 100% as he would like to have it.  Having to work harder than normal to be fast he said while he topped the times by 3-seconds this was not a true refection of how close the field is and unlike his rivals his run didn’t contain mistakes.  For the final qualifier when he will need to see of the challenge of Prumper, admitting his fellow countryman has slight better pace, he will after a 10-minute discussion with engineer Yukijiro Umino make further changes to his tyre prep and set-up.

Suffering a string of mistakes Prumper eventually decided to pull his BD7 off at just after the 3-minute mark.  With no complaints about the car he said the problem was simply down to too many mistakes from the driver.  Having taken Q1 when the pressure of his pace caused forced Volker to push over the limit and make a mistake he said he knows he has the speed to deny his team-mate the overall TQ, which would be a good start to his 2015 season with 2014 having been a rather fruitless season for the 21-year-old.

Having went the wrong direction with a suspension change for Q2, Sudhoff said he just went the opposite way and the result was a car that was ‘very easy to drive’.  Suffering one moment when he had the car on three wheels through the fast chicane, he said they now just need to make some fine adjustments to find that last 1/10th of a second. Still in remote contact with Andy Moore and HB team manager Hiroyuki Kasuya he said hopefully they can find that for the final qualifier and allow him to battle for a good starting position in the final.

Hagberg described the first 3-minutes as ‘very good’.  Changing his tyre prep he said the car was better than before but his problem this time was that when himself and Rheinard ran noise to tail, Hagberg in front, he lost his rhythm.  In the end he would make a ‘stupid mistake’ on his second last lap losing over a second in time as a result.  Happy with the progress made in the consistency of the car he said they were now down to the last minute of the race seeing a drop off in pace and he hopes further tyre prep changes would rectify this.

Trying a different additive and again making his rear diff harder, Rheinard said these made little difference. The slightly dejected Tamiya driver said he will again go up in the stiffness of his TRF419 diff adding that with little to lose he will also use the last run to try out Protoform’s new Dodge Dart bodyshell.

Running a heavily modified Awesomatix, Martin Lissau said while the round produced his best result, changes made to the car to try and help it with the bumps had made it super hard to drive.  Saying his ‘pace is really good for (him)’ the Dane plans to revert to his Q2 set-up when he was on a good run before suffering a spin.

Completing the Top 6 Marc Fischer said the increase in the oil weight in the diff of his Serpent was ‘not good’.  Going to 8000w he will revert back to 6000w.  The German also found after the run that his rear left shock was loose on the S411 something he acknowledged wouldn’t have helped the car’s performance.  Behind Fischer Viljami was seventh fastest followed by Xray’s onroad chassis designer Martin Hudy.

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Volker takes Q2 at DHI Cup

Defending DHI Cup Champion Ronald Volker took the second round of qualifying this morning at the famous Danish event. The heat would see a number of drivers top the time screens over the 5-minutes but in the end it was the Yokomo driver who got the job done. 2.8-seconds down, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg would claim second with yesterday’s Q1 winner Yannic Prumper completing the Top 3.

Having rolled in the opening qualifier as he tried to keep pace with team-mate Prumper, Volker had a clean second heat with him declaring himself pleased to get a TQ run under his belt.  Having made changes to his LRP powered BD7 which gave him ‘a lot more steering’, the German said with the car having a very different feeling he had to adapt his driving and this allowed Serpent’s Marc Fischer, who early-on set the TQ pace, to close in.  Able to get a better feel for the car after 2-minutes he said he was then able to pull away from Fischer and get in a clean final 3 minutes.  While the changes increased the cars steering he said it was a little too much for his driving style and overall he found it more difficult to drive adding they need to make small changes for the next qualifier to get it more comfortable.

Having put his ORCA powered T4 at the top of the timing screen, Hagberg described his qualifier as ‘a lot better driving wise’.  The Swede added the first 2-minute were ‘really good’ but then he lost pace, something he is attributing to his tyre prep.  Changing to a stiffer shock spring for today, he said this made the car more consistent adding if they can figure out a tyre prep that make the tyre perform evenly over the run everything ‘should be fine’.

Not happy with his opening lap, Prumper said his performance got better during the run as he worked his way to the top of the times.  Setting the fastest lap of the round, he would however make a mistake after the straight on lap 17 of 25 losing amost 1.5 seconds.  Despite this the 21-year-old said his Muchmore powered Yokomo is ‘very good’ and its just down to him driving it.

Switching to his ETS car having struggled yesterday with a lack of traction Marc Rheinard said it was ‘OK’ but again in the fast chicane he had ‘zero feeling’.  Making a mistake a lap before Prumper had his, he said without the lost 1.3 seconds it would have been a pretty decent run to second instead of fourth.  Having went softer with the rear diff in his TRF419 he felt it was too much and for Q3 he will go back up in oil and ‘try again’.

Going from 3000w to 6000w oil in the diff, Fischer said this improved his G-Force powered S411 a lot. Also changing the front shock position he said he was surprised by his own pace over the first minute but after that ‘maybe I drove like shit’ leading to a mistake and the 5th fastest time.  Overall pleased with the improvement made to the car which he feels without his mistake had the pace to finish ahead of Hagberg he will for the next qualifier increase further his rear diff oil to 8000w.

Completing the Top 6, new HB signing Freddy Sudhoff said he learned that he went the wrong way with his set-up.  Trying a different shock set-up he said while it improved the pace of his LRP powered PRO5, in terms of fastest hot lap it was difficult to drive consistently.  Knowing now what direction he needs to take he expects Q3 should be better.

In the Super Stock class factory Xray drivers Marek Cerny and Jan Ratheisky repeated their Q1 performance with another 1-2. Serpent’s Merlin Depta completed the Top 3 followed by top Dane Mike Gosvig and Norway’s Helge Johannessen.

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