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Rheinard takes opening qualifier of new ETS season

Posted: 27 Oct 2017 10:27 AM PDT

Marc Rheinard has taken the first qualifier of the new season of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series. Sixth fastest in seeding practice but confident he had a good car over 5-minutes, the Infinity driver delivered the only 24-lap time to TQ the first of the four qualifiers in Vienna. Behind, Awesomatix’ Viljami Kutvanen would set the second fastest time, missing out on making 24-laps by half a second, with Ronald Volker completing the Top 3 a second off the Finn’s pace. Having topped seeding, it wasn’t to be a good start for defending champion Bruno Coelho. From the start the Xray driver had the first of a number of moments when he got loose but it was contact with the boards at the end of the main straight that ended his chances of the TQ as his car needed to be marshalled.

‘A very good start’, was how Rheinard summed up his impressive TQ run. The German added, ‘I can’t remember the TQ run I had so it feels good to start off the weekend like this’. Finding himself catching up on the closely bunched group of Naoki Akiyama, team-mate Akio Sobue and Alexander Hagberg, he said he was lucky to get by Akiyama when the Japanese driver got his Yokomo up on two wheels. Getting passed Sobue when he put his IF4 on its roof, Hagberg would give the 4-time World Champion room after which he had a clear track ahead of him. With Coelho laying down the fastest lap of Q1, Rheinard said, ‘I think Bruno had an advantage but his car looks not so easy to drive’. Also referring to his own car as ‘not super easy to drive’, he said using third run tyres had made it slightly better but for now the plan is to just bag up the tyres and leave the car as is. With Q2 for Modified not up till late tomorrow morning he said, ‘I will wait to see how the track is nearer to the time of our qualifier’.

Enjoying his most competitive ETS outing at last year’s season opener, getting this year’s campaign off to a similar start Viljami said, ‘In practice I had some good laps here and there but 5-minutes was not good so I changed the gear diff and everything felt better’. Just making the top heat by setting the 10th fastest time in controlled practice, he continued, ‘I think I was too careful (in Q1) and I also had traffic because I started last so I think there is room to improve in Q2’.

‘I’m ok with P3 for Q1 but we need to step it up because our focus is to get the overall TQ’, was Volker’s reaction to his performance in the opening qualifier. The Yokomo driver said, ‘It was a weird first lap. The car was loose in the right corners plus Bruno had problems so I lost time at the beginning’. He continued, ‘the car also felt pushing to the left so I couldn’t go as fast as I want and so could not hang on to the TQ pace. The car was way better in CP2’.

Setting the fourth fastest time despite running in the second fastest group, Christopher Krapp said, ‘that was really good actually’. The former ETS race winner continued, ‘I knew my 5-minute pace was good but I changed from an active to a standard rear and that made me more confident in the chicane. Before it was nervous and now its more stable’. Finishing 1-second off his team-mate Volker, he was ‘surprised’ at his own time because of having to lap cars during the qualifier which he said had cost him time. Describing last season’s ETS as a ‘disaster for me with so many BQ’s’ he concluded this is a good start to get back in the A-Main. In terms of his BD8, he said overall I am happy with the car but I will just make some little changes to get a little more steering’.

‘Ah the car is awesome’ was Marco Kaufmann’s reaction to setting the 5th fastest time. Finishing as the top Xray driver, the German added, ‘Only Coelho had a faster lap than me and he is a great driver’. Qualifying 8th at the season finale in Ettlingen back in July, he concluded, ‘I had some bad laps because I pushed too hard so the driver just needs the same pace as the car. Its perfect, it doesn’t need to be changed’.

Alexander Hagberg declared his P6 time in Q1 as ‘not a good start’. The Swede said, ‘Bruni spun at the first corner so me and Ronald had to brake and I lost my rhythm for the run and it cost me a lot of time’. Having improved his T4 from controlled practice, he said, ‘hopefully with a clean run I can fight for the top spot tomorrow’. Behind Hagberg, Olly Jefferies was 7th quickest followed by Frederik Südhoff, Yannic Prümper and Jan Ratheisky.

View the complete event results here.

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Video – Modified Qualifying Rd1

Posted: 27 Oct 2017 09:11 AM PDT

Coelho from Volker in controlled practice at ETS opener

Posted: 27 Oct 2017 07:44 AM PDT

A new season of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series got underway in Vienna, Austria, today with practice ending with a familiar theme to last season as Bruno Coelho topped the times. Having topped free practice, the Xray driver would lay down the fastest 3-consecutive laps in the first of the controlled practice runs with no one able to better the pace in the second and final practice. It would be Ronald Volker who would top CP2, but like Coelho he couldn’t beat his earlier time. Behind, Alexander Hagberg would complete the Top 3, the Xray driver improving his time in CP2 by more than 4/10ths of a second. Also improving in CP2, Naoki Akiyama is seeded P4 for qualifying ahead of Infinity pairing Akio Sobue and Marc Rheinard.

Summing up his practice at Messe Wien, the ETS running as part of Austria’s biggest hobby show, Coelho said, ‘the last one I had a lot of mistakes and traffic but the car is working good. I just need to drive more consistent and with less mistakes’. The reigning champion added, ‘I haven’t changed the car during the practice, I have just worked on adapting to the track’.

‘It is surprising the track didn’t improve more’, was Volker’s reaction as he came in from marshalling with him adding, ‘Normally you expect it to change a lot more’. The Yokomo driver continued that for the final practice ‘I focused a bit more on my driving for a clean run and it worked out well’ – his overall time the fastest of all four practices. He added, ‘The Top 10 is very close to each other so you have to be faultless’. On his car, the World Champion said, ‘the balance is good we just need slightly more steering’.

Reacting to his P3 seeding, Hagberg said, ‘it is getting better and its is pretty good now’. The Swede added, ‘the track changed and the grip came up which is better for our set-up and hopefully it will be even better in qualifying’. Commenting on the track layout the multiple ETS race winner said, ‘it is nice to drive. There are some small bumps in the carpet but this is the only negative point’. Asked about changing his car for Q1 he replied, ‘I will talk to my mechanic about making a small change’ – his mechanic being the T4’s designer Martin Hudy.

Akiyama was pleased with the performance of his Yokomo but less happy with his own driving. Describing the track as ‘a little difficult’, the 18-year-old added, ‘there are many long corners’. Planning to leave his BD8 unchanged for Q1, the World Finalist said, ‘I need to focus more on my driving for qualifying’.

Fellow countryman Sobue was having similar issues to Akiyama. The Japanese National Champion said, ‘the car is good but the driver is making too many mistakes’. Also finding the track ‘a little bit difficult’, he was complimentary of the track saying it was better than any of the carpet tracks he raced on in the ETS last season. While hoping to make his IF14 a little more balanced for his first qualifying attempt he concluded, ‘the big thing is to improve the driver’.

Completing the Top 6, Rheinard summed up his practice as having gone ‘pretty OK’. The German continued, ‘my 3-laps are not super fast but on a full run I’m consistent’. He added, ‘Things looked bad in the first one because Bruno was 1.7 in front but it’s got better’. Using the four practice runs to break in two sets of race tyres, the Infinity driver is confident these will each bring him a further improvement in qualifying when they will be on their optimum 3rd run. In terms of liking the track layout, he said, ‘it is kind of fast so many people have the same speed but it is a good layout’.

Setting the seventh quickest time, Awesomatix’ Freddy Sudhoff said the final practice was the first time he was confident with the car and therefore able to push. The German said, ‘we struggled a little with the layout and set-up but at least we could improve run after run’. Having been able to improve his lap times in CP2, he said now they need to look at finding a little more overall traction for qualifying. Behind Sudhoff the Top 10 was completed by Olly Jefferies, Marco Kaufmann and Awesomatix team-mate Viljami Kutvonen.

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Track Focus – Messe Wien

Posted: 27 Oct 2017 04:51 AM PDT

Track Name – Messe Wien
Club – HSH Traiskirchen
Country – Austria
Location – Vienna
Direction – Anti-clockwise
Surface – Carpet
No. of ETS Races hosted – 0

Season #11 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series gets underway at an exciting new location as drivers descend on Austria’s largest model show which is expecting almost 50,000 visitors. Invited to be part of ‘Modellbau 2017’ by the show organisers, while this is the championship’s 7th visit to Austria, it is the first time the country has hosted the season opener. Surrounded by trains, slot cars, rc drifting, military RC battle fields, RC construction sites and everything modelling related, the ETS has taken over around half of one of the Messe Wien’s exhibitions hall with the show already bringing in large crowds, helped today (Friday) by the fact it is a national holiday in Austria. Led by Daniel Raimann and Robert Bachofner with a team from local club HSH Traiskirchen, the track build for the show was a bigger undertaking than normal for an ETS indoor race. As with most exhibition halls there are covered over cable tunnels running throughout the hall to feed electrical supplies to exhibitors stand and so to have the flattest possible surface on which to lay the track carpet a wooden subfloor had to be built prior to the start of the ‘normal’ track build’.

Covering an area 34 metres long by 20 metres wide, the additional bonus of the subfloor is that the boards can be screwed into position making for a better presented track layout. Coming into the weekend chasing a third consecutive ETS title, Bruno Coelho described the layout as ‘fast & technical at the same time but fun’. Adding the track is ‘a little bumpy’ he said while ‘there is not really one place you can make or lose time’ he added that the chicane in front of the drivers stand was very challenging. Coming into it fast, the sweeper before it having already been tweaked during practice from its original layout, he said, ‘the entry is very fast and then you are turning left and right on the brakes’.

Asked his thoughts on the track, Ronald Volker said, ‘the layout is good but it could be a little more tight. Now the lap times are very close however its a nice and flowing layout’. The Yokomo driver shared rival Coelho’s view on the standout section of the track saying, ‘the long fast corner in front of the driver stand into the chicane is the hardest corner’. On the track surface, he said, ‘It is a bit bumpy but for me it is ok’.

One new addition to the ETS this weekend is the introduction of the Infinity Masters Touring Car Class. Open to drivers 40-years old or over, the class runs to the championship’s regular Pro Stock rules with 29 drivers signing up for the class here in Austria.

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