No surprises as Volker TQ opening DHI qualifier

The opening round of qualifying threw up no real surprises as Team Yokomo’s Ronald Volker TQ’d the opening round of qualifying ahead of defending Champion Adrian Berntsen and Marc Rheinard.  Bringing the first day of action at the 14th running of the famous Danish event to a close Volker topped the first of the four scheduled qualifiers with a time of 25-laps in 5:11.289 with Bernsten just over 1 second adrift. Despite setting the fastest lap of Q1, Rheinard could not make a 25-lap run finishing with a time of 5:00.764.

While it was pretty much plain sailing out front for Volker, Rheinard said his Tamiya is just sliding around with the lack of overall grip appearing to be getting worse for the German.  Admitting he is not far away from his arch rival and ETS title nemesis, he said unlike Volker for him to do that kind of pace every lap is just not possible.  Running his ‘soft’ TRF418 in Q1, the Much More powered car fitted with a more flexible chassis plate, he said for tomorrow’s second qualifier he might switch back to his ‘stiffer’ chassis again but first he plans to think about his set-up options overnight before making that decision.

Setting the fourth fastest time Awesomatix factory driver Viljami Kutvonen described his first qualifier as an ‘ok start to the event’.  The rapid Finn said he changed his tyre preparation for the run and that was a wrong decision.  This resulted in him losing time at the start of the run but once the tyres came in he said the car was good and he feels the pace is there to mix it with both Rheinard and Berntsen. Planning to go back to the tyre prep he used in practice he said he will fine tune the set-up on his LRP powered A700 EVO as he feels he can get a little more speed out of him by getting a better balance between having more steering without bringing on traction roll.

Serpent’s Marc Fischer kicked off his qualifying with the fifth fastest time.  The German said his Viper powered S411 was good in the beginning but a combination of mistakes that got bigger and bigger cost him a lot of time.  Feeling the car started to push as the run progressed he said without the mistakes he believes he is pretty close to Rheinard.  Not sure yet what he will change for the morning’s second qualifier he said he hopes to cure the car from developing as much understeer but ultimately he needs to cut out the mistakes for a good run.

Completing the Top 6 was Xray team leader Alexander Hagberg.  The Swede said he had a couple of mistakes over the 5-minutes adding he is not entirely comfortable with his ORCA powered T4.  Planning to work on it tomorrow, when asked about the possibility of trying a similar set-up to Berntsen he said their driving styles are completely different as he found out when he previously tried to run the Norwegian’s set-up.

In the Pro Stock class Oliver Franke got his debut for Awesomatix off to a great start by taking his A700 EVO to the fastest time in the opening qualifier.  The German TQ’d the round by just a little over 2-seconds from reigning ETS Pro Stock Champion Marek Cerny, the Xray driver having topped practice earlier in the day.  The Top three for the class which runs a controlled LRP X20 13.5T motor was completed by German driver Jan Ratheisky.

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Volker ends practice on top

Having set the pace in the opening round of timed practice at the DHI Cup Ronald Volker has gone on to secure the honour of top seed for qualifying after he again topped a much faster concluding round of practice at the Danish event.  Improving his time by one second over 3-consecutive laps, the German ace ran a time of 37.874 to head the ranking from arch rival Marc Rheinard and defending Champion Adrian Berntsen who improved his pace by a massive 2.1 seconds.

Making changes to the rear end of his LRP powered BD7 2014, Volker said these improved the feeling of the car and more comfortable with it he was in turn able to push harder.  Declaring himself ‘very satisfied’ with how practice went the German ace, who is chasing a 5th DHI title, said ‘all looks good’ going into tonight’s opening qualifier.

Switching from the stiff chassis ETS car he ran in the first timed practice to his softer chassis spare TRF418, Rheinard said both cars have the same problem with being difficult coming on to the main straight.  The 3-time World Champion said the difference between the two cars should be very noticeable but the lack of traction means you cant really feel any difference.  Having run the soft car with 400w shock oil in the front and 500w in the rear he will continue with the same car for the opening qualifier but with 450w oil all round.  Having run a new set of the controlled LRP tyres in the practice Rheinard said he will run the same set again for qualifying with the tyres so far proving to be faster on their second run.

Berntsen said changing from a 4.5 to 5 turn motor made a very big difference with his Xray ‘much better’.  Having complained of his car being too aggressive in the first timed practice he said the reduced powered maybe made the car a little too easy to drive.  Planning to stay with the same motor he said he will most likely change his tyre preparation for Q1.

Behind the Top 3, Finland’s Viljami Kutvonen took his Awesomatix to the fourth fastest time ahead of Martin Hudy.  Only 9th fastest in the first free practice Hudy said while he improved on his position, compared with the pace of Volker it was a terrible time.  Having changed his set-up for the final run he said it was as good as his base set-up he ran earlier in the day.  Planning to go back to that set-up for Q1 the Slovakian driver said there is better potential in the car with that set-up.  Ending up 7th fastest, team-mate Alexander Hagberg said his car was fast over a single lap but the consistency needs work.  The Swede said with a few small changes all should ‘be ok’ for qualifying.

Completing the Top 6 was Serpent’s Marc Fischer, the German still not overly happy with his car.  Changes made after the opening timed practice made the car ‘better’ but he said it is still not fast enough.  For the first of his qualifying runs he will adjust the droop on the S411 along with running a softer shock oil in the hope of giving the car more high speed steering.

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Volker sets early pace at DHI Cup

Ronald Volker has set the early pace on the opening day of the DHI Cup in Denmark, the Team Yokomo driver topping the first timed practice from last year’s event winner Adrian Berntsen.  A four time winner of the event, Volker posted a time of 37.377 for his 3-fastest consecutive laps compared to Berntsen’s 37.423 with Tamiya’s Marc Rheinard third over 3/10ths of a second further a drift.

Running his BD7 2014 for the first time in Europe, having debuted the car late last year at the Yatabe Arena in Japan, Volker summed up his practice runs by saying it was ‘going good so far’.  ‘Still working on some details of the set-up’, the Euro Touring Series Champion said that despite three rounds of practice now completed, the day kicking off with two 5-minute free practice runs, the traction levels are still low but he expects them to increase as the day goes on.

The defending Champion having ended Volker’s hunt for a fourth straight win of the DHI Cup last year, Bernsten said his Xray is fast over a single lap but struggling over 5-minutes.  Describing his car as ‘too aggressive’, he will motor down for the second timed practice going from a 4.5 to a 5.0 ORCA motor.  Hoping the traction will improve for the run the Norwegian plans to leave the chassis set-up as is.  His first international win, asked if this years race brought any extra pressure he said he was just treating it like any other race.  Having recently just started college, where he will study Business Management, he said this has curtailed his racing activities.  Having not raced since the opening round of the 2013/14 ETS back in November, he said if he can come away with a Top 5 finish on Sunday evening he will be happy.

Rheinard described his performance as ‘Average’.  A 2-time winner of the DHI Cup, he said his TRF418 is not consistent.  Having run two cars during the free practice runs he chose his ETS car for the first timed run but he said the lack of traction made it hard to differentiate what the key differences were.  Sharing similar thoughts to Volker that the track layout is a little too open, he said for the next & final practice he does not know whether to go with running the other car or to make changes to the set-up of his ETS car which could be a risk should the traction suddenly come up.

Setting the fourth fastest time was Viljami Kutvonen.  The factory Awesomatix driver described his A700 EVO as ‘OK’ adding that with a little more steering he was confident of a good run.  Having struggled last year with some of the bumpy areas on the track he said with the new car he is no longer affected by these.  Planning to adjust his front set-up of the Russian designed car’s unique dampers, he said this should give him the extra steering he needs to put him in the mix.

Alexander Hagberg took his Xray to the 5th fastest time, the Swede describing his run as ‘not too bad’.  Having switched over to a set-up used by Martin Hudy when the Xray designer was faster than him at the Charity Race in Italy, Hagberg said he has changed very little on his car since the opening practice preferring instead to wait for the traction to come.  Hoping the track comes to him he said he was feeling confident about the weekend ahead.

Completing the Top 6 was Danish National Champion Patrick Hornum.  The Serpent driver, who started the event with a brand new S411, described the car as ‘hard to drive.  Planning to stiffen up his set-up for the final practice he hopes this will give him a better feeling with the car.

Team-mate & lead Serpent factory driver Marc Fischer was just 2/100ths off the Dane.  The German said his Viper powered S411 is a little loose in the rear.  Planning to go from 2.5 to 3mm toe he will also change front spring which he said while not different in hardness should make it easier to drive.  Also racing in the offroad part of the event, running Serpent’s 2WD Spyder, asked about how that was going he said he had no idea what he was doing.  Having raced 4WD Buggies over 10-years ago, he said 2WD is totally different and so after each of his runs he goes to Joern Neumann to find out what he needs to be doing to the car which he emphasised he is ‘just racing for fun’ this weekend.

Former top international Danish racer Steen Graversen completed the Top 8 with his self modified belt driven Awesomatix followed by Martin Hudy and fast Swede Magnus Vässmar.

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