“A really great battle with Marc” was how winner of A1 Ronald Völker described what certainly seemed to be one of the most exciting Touring Car races of the last decade to all the spectators trackside at the second round of the ETS in Daun. With Volker leading off the field, the Team Yokomo driver was immediately under pressure from the second starting car of Marc Rheinard. For the first half of the race, the two champions raced literally nose-to-tail, Volker’s car not looking as safe as it had done in qualifying. At the half way point, Rheinard twice got alongside Volker going through the teardrop section on the left side of the large Daun circuit. But both times, Ronald was able to fight back at the following corner and hold onto the lead.

“It took everything out of me” was Volker’s initial reaction to the race, both drivers visibly exhausted after the intense five minute race. “I really struggled with the new bumps on the track, which were on my usual lines. I had to figure out new lines during the race”. After the half way point, having seen off the immense challenge from his long-time rival, he said he had “figured it out, and then I could make a small gap, which was enough”.

“An intense and nice race” was how Rheinard reacted to the battle. The TONISPORT backed driver, piloting an Awesomatix chassis for the first time at an ETS race this weekend, described it as a “good fight, a clean fight. I could make some nice moves to the inside, but he fought back fairly”. Feeling like he had a quicker car in the middle of the run, the recently crowned 1:12th scale World Champion said “seeing his exhaustion afterwards showed me how tough a race it was. I’m looking forward to going again in A2 but hope this time I can come out on top”.

Behind the two Germans, it was Bruno Coelho who managed to get past Yannic Prümper for third, almost un-noticed as the attention was focussed on the battle up front. Coelho was able to move his XRAY to within striking distance of the top two, but in the second half of the race when Ronald was able to pull his gap, the gap opened up again.

In Pro Stock, Jan Ratheisky led the field until one and a half minutes remained, when he clipped a kerb and allowed Olivier Bultynck, who had been shadowing him until that time, to get past. Ollie explained that he “tried to stay in touch with Jan, but make sure not to make a mistake as Alexandre Duchet and Simon Lauter were close behind. But then Jan made the mistake, I saw the opening and went for it”.

In Formula, it was also disaster for Ratheisky, as with a comfortable lead he took a roll with just two laps remaining. Sitting upside down, he could do nothing as Matej Dobnikar swept through to take the lead and the win. A frantic fight for third had David Ehrbar coming through to take the place ahead of Luke Lee RC.

Front Wheel Drive was a treat for the crowd as Marwin Riedelbauch spent five minutes less than half a second behind pole sitter Henrik Heitsch. Riedelbauch closed the gap a number of times, but long-time ETS supporter Heitsch held off the pressure, including a drag race along the front straight to the finish line.

In Masters, a small drama on lap one for Alexander Stocker saw him take a half spin and a trip across the kerbs and green infield carpet. But he recovered and held onto the lead, and from there extended the gap each and every lap. Andreas Weyhoven held second and Werner Schmitzer took third.

Stock 17.5 was led by pole man Dominik Ruf for the first half of the race, but then he rolled his car onto its roof as he exited the back section of the track. This gave second place starter Joachim Altenhof a nice lead, which he didn’t give up for the remainder of the race. Alexander Muller got through to second, as Ruf was left with a third place finish.

Team Yokomo driver Ronald Völker secured the overall Top Qualifying position in the final round of action at the ETS in Daun. Reflecting on his run, the German former ETS champion was clearly happy to start up front following a lot of work developing the team’s new BD10 chassis over the winter. Asked about any changes for the last round, Volker responded that he “changed the tyre prep slightly – and that was the best for the car right now”. Looking to the triple finals, he said to end qualifying with another TQ run was “for sure a boost going into A1. But I know Marc will try everything for the win”.

Marc Rheinard RC will line up second on the grid. Taking third in Q4, the German, who was let go from former team Creation Model Ltd./Infinity over the Christmas break in the ETS schedule, continues to be pleased with the speed he has found with his TONISPORT-backed Awesomatix chassis. Knows as one of the best head-to-head racers on the planet, spectators are likely to be treated to some close racing with Rheinard so evenly matched on pace with Volker this weekend. Rheinard’s Tonisport team-mate, also running an Awesomatix this weekend, Yannic Prümper took fourth in the round and will line up third overall. The big improvement in the round was Bruno Coelho, the XRAY driver second on the track to move into fourth in the final qualifying rankings. This pushes Yokomo’s Christopher Krapp down to fifth on the grid.

In Pro Stock, Jan Ratheisky’s hold over the class came to an end, as Olivier Bultynck took the final qualifier for Awesomatix. Noting it was a “good feeling – finally the driver was awake”, the popular Belgian put his result down to “just driving better”. The result means he will start second on the grid behind Ratheisky, with Alexandre Duchet’s Xray set to line up third. The Frenchman, who took third in Q4, reflected that his car was “really good. A little difficult in the first minute but overall good”. Not planning on any changes for the finals, he hopes to take his car, which is being prepared for him by Xray T4 designer Martin Hudy, onto the podium. Taking second on the round and fourth overall, Simon Lauter said he was “not super happy, you don’t come to an ETS to finish P4”. Cheering up a little, he said the team was working well together, and that “Ollie has the best car right now, but we are getting there with mine and I will see if I can learn anything else from him to help me for the finals”.

The first leg of the finals will take place on Saturday evening, with the results to be decided after legs two and three on Sunday.

Ronald Völker again set the best time as qualifying resumed on Saturday morning. The Team Yokomo lead driver quickly commented that he was “of course very happy with a TQ run”. Talking of the track conditions, he found “there was a little less overall grip than yesterday, but my BD10 was still fast”. For Q4, which rival Marc Rheinard RC needs to win with a new best time to stop the 2016 World Champion starting on pole, Volker will “keep the car the same, but make a small change to the tyre prep”. Unsure what Q4 will bring, the experienced driver said “at previous indoor ETS races, Q4 has not been fast as the carpet can get sticky, but we’ll have to wait and see how it is”.

With Rheinard crashing out late in the run, second place went to TONISPORT driver Yannic Prümper. Backing up his Q1 result, the driver, racing a privately entered Awesomatix, said that he “again had the same problem as Q1 – the rear was loose in the first minutes”. Set to try his second tyre set for Q4, he will otherwise “keep the car as it is”, adding that for Q3 he had “reduced the power on my Maclan speedo a little, which made the car more consistent”.

Amongst the other top drivers to encounter problems, XRAY’s Bruno Coelho ground to a halt on lap two with a spur gear failure, and Alexander Hagberg had issues late in the run to also retire. This meant Christopher Krapp put a second Yokomo into the top three once again, however the German was not a smiling face back in the pits. “Perhaps the most disappointing third place result you will see,” he later joked. “The car was brilliant and I’m not happy with myself – I know I can drive better. But still it is a solid result for the team and important to lock ourselves into the top half of the grid”. Thinking about the conditions, he added “the track gets more edgy, which I think is what is letting more people make mistakes”. For Q4, he will change nothing on his car and just focus on his driving.

With the issues of the other top runners, Yugo Nagashima and the Serpent team seemed very happy to score fourth place in the round. The Japanese driver, who is on a small world tour after attending last weekend’s Snowbirds race in the USA, said his improved pace came from adding a T-plate stiffener to the rear of his X20 chassis, as well as reducing the rear toe in slightly. Looking to try to get himself into the A Main now, he will make a drastic change for the last qualifier and switch to a carbon chassis plate.

The biggest surprise was Swiss driver Michele Manzo taking fifth overall. The Awesomatix pilot was seeded in the C Heat, and started by saying “that was better than yesterday!” Making a number of changes to his car, switching to a softer differential and also changing to the popular Xtreme Twister bodyshell, he will think if he wants to make any changes for Q4 – not really expecting to be in contention for an A Final spot at the event.

In Pro Stock, Jan Ratheisky took his third TQ in as many rounds, securing the overall pole position. Pleased to have wrapped it up early, he can now use Q4 to test some different things before looking ahead to the Finals – the first leg due to run this evening, with legs two and three on Sunday. Second in Pro Stock was his Xray team-mate Alexandre Duchet. The Frenchman has been slowly improving his results throughout qualifying, with his car being worked on by the car’s designer, Martin Hudy. Simon Lauter keeps himself in the mix with a third in round, but admitted he felt he was missing something – but wasn’t sure exactly what.

Ronald Völker has topped the second round of qualifying, with the late-evening run showing up a rather different top five result to the afternoon’s Q1. Stopping the clock 1.2 seconds ahead of arch-rival Marc Rheinard RC, the Team Yokomo lead driver said that it was “great to get a clean, quick run”. Commenting how tough an ETS event is, with “four or five hours break, it is easy to loose your momentum [between runs]”. Having made no changes to his BD10 from earlier in the day, he said the difference was “driving with no mistakes this time”. He will think about any changes overnight, expecting that as the Volante hand-out tyres get older, he may need more rear grip to keep the car “safe to drive”.

Marc Rheinard took second in the round, the TONISPORT driver said his Awesomatix was “pretty much the same as before” but he had “a few rough laps, but still very happy to have a 1 and a 2 from today”. Now firmly locked in to the front of the A Final, he will try some “bigger changes for tomorrow” as he still searches for a little more steering in the slow corners on the fast, but technical, Daun circuit.

Backing up his Yokomo team leader with a third in round, Christopher Krapp joked that “this time, I am happy with the driver”. Pointing out there was still a gap to close to get on pace with Volker and Rheinard, the two German World Champions looking like the class of the field this weekend, he said his run was a little disrupted by current ETS Champion Bruno Coelho. With Coelho rolling his car out of the track at the half way point, the Portuguese driver re-joined immediately behind Krapp and sat on the rear bumper of the German for the remaining two minutes. Krapp commented that “it was close, but luckily all was good in the end”.

Fourth in the round was the best of the XRAY runners, with Alexander Hagberg putting himself back into the mix at the sharp end after a tough Q1. As his team-mate Coelho had experienced in Q1, the British-based driver from Sweden said he “struggled in the first minute of the run”. Noting he had “good pace at the end”, his focus for tomorrow is to “improve the car in that first minute – both some small changes to the car and tyre prep changes”. Rounding out the top five was Awesomatix driver Freddy Südhoff. Sudhoff said his run was “OK, but strangely I was missing traction”. Elaborating further, the driver, who took his first ETS victory last season in Madrid, added that “the rear wanted to snap mid-corner, so it was very difficult to drive”. Set to discuss the car and possible changes for tomorrow with his team overnight, Sudhoff sits sixth in the overnight standings.

In Pro Stock, Jan Ratheisky made it back-to-back TQ runs as he again set the fastest time. When asked, he replied that he “drove the same as the first qualifier” and also explained that his usual game-plan for qualifying is “not to drive full punch, but drive consistent for the whole run”. Not yet thinking about any changes for tomorrow, he will look forward to a good nights sleep as the long ETS days start to take their toll on the drivers. Second in the round was fellow Xray driver, Leo Arnold. The driver, who represents Monaco, said this time his car was “easier to drive, with less stopping in the corners”. Saying that he felt he could have taken the fight to Ratheisky, he had one traction roll just as he started to drive harder in the closing stages. Rounding out the top five was Lukas Ellerbrock, the German Xray driver around one second behind Arnold when the clock stopped after five minutes.

Q3 and Q4 will take place tomorrow, where the overall TQ, and indeed all ten fixed A Final places, are set to be decided.

The opening qualifier in Daun was set to be something special, as the close practice times and extended track time made the field look closer than it has been in recent years. That played out to be true as the times were incredibly close and just a few small errors determined the top placings. At the end of five minutes, TONISPORT’s Marc Rheinard came through to set the fastest time with his Awesomatix chassis. Reacting to his win, the German reacted by saying “of course it’s a good start”. Elaborating more, trying to think of when he last topped a qualifier at an ETS, he said the result was as the result of “the perfect work by the whole team” – Marc now being more formally supported by Awesomatix for this event and for the rest of the 2020 season. However, despite the pace in Q1, he wasn’t completely happy with everything, saying that the “car was too easy to drive. I need more steering in the hairpins”. Seeming more energised coming into this race, he ended by saying “it shows everyone that we [him and team-mate Yannic Prümper] can still drive”.

Prumper came through to set the second best time, after mistakes from Ronald Völker and Bruno Coelho pushed them down the ranking. Prumper noted that he had a “bad start”, with the car being “super loose for the first two minutes”. Following the initial stint, once the car came in he said he had “more traction and it was more stable. Then I could push as hard as possible”. Rounding out the top three was an impressive recovery from Volker. The lead Team Yokomo factory driver initially lead the heat, before “heads up racing with Marc made me push a bit too much and I touched a kerb” – resulting in his car taking a roll. Despite dropping as low as eighth in the running, he said “the car didn’t drop pace and I could put in the laptimes still”, before looking to the next round by saying “It’s very promising for Q2 – but of course disappointing to throw away a potential TQ in the first run”.

Coelho was in the mix with Rheinard and Volker through the early stages, but then admitted he “made a big mistake on the fifth or sixth lap”. Landing back on his wheels, the current ETS and World Champion took fourth in the round, four hundredths of a second back on Volker, and just one hundredth up on fifth place finisher, Christopher Krapp. Thinking about changes to his XRAY chassis, Coelho explained that he “needs to find a different additive strategy – the car is very different to drive in the first minute. The laptimes show the car is not slow, so we just have to find something in the beginning [of the run]”. With Krapp making it two Yokomo cars in the top five, the German reacted by saying he was “happy with the result, but not with the driver”. Loosing a top-three result by a few hundredths of a second, he said the main change for Q2 would be “to change to my other tyre set”. Looking at who he feels he needs to race against, the former ETS winner said “there is a bit of a gap to the usual top three [Rheinard, Volker and Coelho], but I feel I can race with Yannic, Freddy, and Alexander Hagberg and try to close the gap to the top three”.

In the Pro Stock class, Jan Ratheisky showed everyone the way home, but he explained he “made some small driving mistakes”. Feeling “comfortable” with his Xray, he admitted that he “didn’t push super hard” as he “couldn’t risk flipping”. Looking to Q2, he will try less timing on the additive as he tries to “free the car up more”. Taking second in the round, popular Belgian Olivier Bultynck said that whilst he “struggled in practice, I didn’t actually make any changes for Q1. Maybe the track came to the car, or maybe I just got better!”. Reflecting on the run, the Awesomatix driver felt that “two small wobbles probably cost me TQ this time”. Rounding out the top three, fellow Awesomatix driver Simon Lauter said his car was “very good”. He had some concerns after second practice – using some rather choice words but toning it down to summarise as “just no pace, so I was pretty unsure how it would be [for the first qualifier]”. Wanting to make some “little tweaks” ahead of the second round, he is still unsure what they will be “but I have four hours left to decide” – the 410+ entries making for plenty of time between rounds for the drivers to work on their cars.

Controlled practice took place on Friday morning as Round 2 of the 2019-2020 Euro Touring Series got underway. Taking place for the third consecutive year at the Sporthotel in Daun, Germany, the large track with a unique shape poses interesting challenges for the near 420 entries this weekend.

Fastest in the Controlled Practice rounds, his CP1 time being the fastest by just one hundredth of a second, defending ETS Champion Bruno Coelho said the event was going “very good”. Noting that yesterday’s additional practice day, added due to the high entry count, was really useful to allow them to test and get a good setup, he said even this morning they were still testing things. Making changes for CP2 which clearly didn’t work out, the Portuguese driver said he will switch back to his CP1 settings and work on his XRAY T4 ‘20 further in qualifying.

Second in Practice was Ronald Völker. The German driver, when questioned about the race so far, smiled and simply said “everything is going well”. Hotly tipped to be the driver to beat this weekend, following his carpet wins at the EWS International and GP3F races either side of Christmas, Volker said the only change for qualifying will be to revert to his tyres from CP1, feeling the car had a slightly nicer balance on these. Commenting on the track, the Team Yokomo pilot said it was “awesome, the best we have had in Daun”.

Third quickest, one tenth behind his fellow German over the three lap seeding times, Marc Rheinard is making his ETS debut with an Awesomatix chassis. The former Creation Model Ltd. Infinity driver said that whilst he is not a formal part of the Awesomatix factory squad, being supported and now employed by TONISPORT, they are providing him with some great support and he is working well with new team-mates such as Freddy Südhoff (who was fourth fastest in practice), allowing them to work through a number of settings. Now set to de-brief with the team, Yannic Prümper making up the top five also with an Awesomatix, they will look to combine the findings to have a car ready to go for Q1 at lunchtime today.