Volker continues to reign at DHI

Having topped practice and then TQ’d the opening round of qualifying yesterday, Ronald Volker continued his reign at the 14th running of the DHI Cup by kicking off Day 2 of the Danish event by topping the second of the four qualifiers.  The Team Yokomo ace took the round once again ahead of Team Xray’s Adrian Berntsen with Serpent’s Marc Fischer completing the Top 3.  Exiting the boundaries of the track twice as his Tamiya understeered off the track, Marc Rheinard failed to complete the full 5-minutes.

‘Could not be any better ‘ is how Volker summed up his run which was over 4-seconds faster than his opening qualifying time of last night.  His first outing in Europe with Yokomo’s new BD7 2014, he said after traction rolling during his warm-up laps he knew traction was high and so he adjusted his driving accordingly. With no such issues over the 5-minutes he said the car performed perfectly.

Summing up his qualifier as ‘pretty good’, Berntsen said he struggled a little at the start something he is putting down to his tyre preparations. Once the tyres on his T4 2014 came in, the reigning champion said he was very happy & confident with the car allowing him to close the gap to Volker for a time before making a mistake on the final lap which lost him over 1-second.  ‘Happy with second’, he plans to change his tyre preparation for Q3 after consultation with his father on what to do differently.

After a error filled run yesterday, Fischer said both his driving and his S411 where better today.  Set-up changes made the car better in the early part of the run better but after the 3-minute mark the German once again had to contend with understeer.  Describing the run as ‘much cleaner’, for his next run the German will change to a softer front spring as well as switching from LRP to CS tyre additive to evaluate if there is any key difference between the two that might help cure his understeer.

Having reverted to his practice set-up Alexander Hagberg was a little happier this morning as he took his ORCA powered Xray to the fourth fastest time.  The Swede said the car was now ‘OK’ but the run just contained too many small driver mistakes.  With a clean run he said he believes a Top 3 run is possible and going forward he is much more confident about the remaining two qualifiers.

Awesomatix’s Viljami Kutvonen said changes to his A700 EVO had improved the car over how it ran in Q1 but the second run was let down by two driver errors.  Eventually posting the 5th fastest time, the Finn said he is undecided as to whether to make any further tweaks to his set-up ahead of Q3.

Germany’s Tim Benson completed the Top 6.  Driving his LRP powered Xray with the same set-up as he ran yesterday when he posted the 7th fastest time, he said his focus for the run was to do 5-minutes with no mistakes.  Achieving that the 23-year-old said having notched up a second safe run he will use the third qualifier to try a set-up to try and gain more in corner steering.

Running the same car as in Q1, Rheinard appears be at a loss as what to do to cure his understeer problems which are clearly visible as the former 3-time World Champion makes his entry onto the main straight.  The German said his two flying exits from the track were a result of him trying, unsuccessfully, to drive through the understeer.  For Q3 he is undecided as to whether to switch to his stiffer ETS chassis or make some radical set-up changes to his ‘softer’ TRF418.

View the complete TC event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

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.

View the complete TC event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

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.

View our event image gallery here.