Overnight TQ for Volker & Hofer at EWS International
Ronald Volker has taken the honours of being the first non-British driver to secure the overall pole position at the EWS International as Yokomo continued their strong showing from practice, in both Modified and Super Stock classes, as qualifying got underway. The fifth running of the race, now firmly established as the highlight of the UK racing scene and a fixture on the European calendar, saw the TQ position confirmed for the current World Champion after he set the pace in all three rounds of Qualifying held today. “All the qualifiers went well” was Volker’s reaction. Explaining that his focus had been on trying different springs throughout the day, he is searching for confidence with the car to make it as “comfortable on the bumps” as possible.
Second behind Volker in the overnight standings, and the only driver so far to show a sign of challenging the Yokomo dominance, is arch-rival Marc Rheinard. The Infinity driver, making his first appearance at the EWS International, said it was “hard to find the perfect setup” and had “tried lots”, working well with team-mate Andy Moore. He further explained that his car “starts good, but drops off too much”. His aim for the final qualifier in the morning will be to secure second on the grid.
The Yokomo team have clearly got the BD8-2018 working well, as Christopher Krapp and Yannic Prumper sit third and fourth. With Krapp, who has experience from attending every EWS International so far, commenting that the “team is working really well” and that as always he is “enjoying racing in Essex”, he feels that he has the pace in the car, but a few driving mistakes cost him the place to Marc. Team mate Prumper said that his car was better in the early rounds and when he tried the same shock settings as his team mates he found the car “really bad” and so will revert to his Q1 setup. Olly Jefferies, the defending race winner, sits fifth overall for Xray, in front of Schumacher’s Elliott Harper, VBC’s Lucas Urbain and the Capricorn of the winner of the first edition of the event, Kyle Branson.
In the Super Stock class, Yokomo’s impressive results continued as Martin Hofer sat on the overnight TQ spot, taking two rounds to Awesomatix’s Max Machler one, who sits second. Hofer described his car as “good”, as he was “getting to grips with the grip level”. Feeling that now there was “more grip than ETS races”, he will continue to look for more steering tomorrow by adjusting the rear track width. He added that it was “great to finally TQ something – even if it’s just overnight” and that the whole team had worked well. In terms of the event, him having attended the third running of the race in early 2016, he said that this year felt a “big step forward” and praised the EWS team for their work and noted that the event really now felt like a major highlight of the calendar.
In Formula, Ben Cosgrove took the first two rounds, before technical problems in Q3 allowed Serpent designer David Ehrbar to take the fastest time and put himself in contention to secure pole position tomorrow.
