published: 2014-08-27 14:10:47 (60041) Author: Willy Wuyts |
Ronald Volker Defends Euro Title: Report and final day video |
| Ronald Volker has successfully defended his EFRA European Championship title today in Alcobendas, Spain, as he took the win in the first two A Finals to wrap up his sixth crown with one round of the A Final still to run. But, it certainly wasnât as easy as it may sound! |
 The first A Final saw the top two on the grid, Bruno Coelho and Ronald Volker, opt to run their new tyres, whilst most of the rest of the field chose to re-run some of their already-used qualifying tyres. That essentially made it a two horse race, with Jilles Groskamp throwing his car off the track in the early stages giving the leaders a huge gap. For five minutes the two circulated in close company, never more than about one second apart. Bruno kept the multi-time champ behind him for the entire five minute duration of the race the top two the only to make an extra lap. Ronald threw everything he had at the final lap, and when Bruno ran wide two corners from home, the German needed no second invitation and took the lead. The final corner saw the Portuguese driver attempt to re-take the lead, but ended up colliding with Volkers Yokomo. Coelho did the sporting thing and waited for Volker to recover, giving the defending champion the vital one point from the opening leg. |
 The second leg saw a mixture of tyre strategy, and it was clear that Bruno wasnt as quick in this leg as he had been in the opener. That led to a mistake on lap five for the Portuguese pole-sitter, which followed with him pulling his car off the track a few laps later. That released Volker into a comfortable lead, but Marc Rheinard and Alexander Hagberg seemed to have more speed clearly on a different strategy to the defending champ. Hagberg got past the three time World Champion Rheinard, and set about after Volker. However, Ronald managed to do enough to keep the gap just managable, and despite Alexanders best efforts, Ronald Volker ran out the winner, to successfully defend his EFRA title. Hagberg finished second, just one tenth of a second behind! Rheinard was third, with Elliott Harper matching his leg 1 result with fourth for Team Durango. |
| Despite the variety of tyre strategies, which led most (including Ronald!) to think the race would go to three legs, the number two grid spot sat empty as Ronald Volker watched the final race of the weekend from the pitlane. Jilles Groskamp finally showed the speed he had demonstrated all week, but had not been able to put everything together. He dispensed with the polesitter on the second lap, and set about building a sizeable lead, lap by lap. A number of incidents shook the field up a number of times, but in crazy races it was the experience of Marc Rheinard which prevailed, the German driver coming through to take second, despite running as low as seventh at one point. Bruno Coehlo took third, which was enough to give him the runner-up spot overall, after dropping to sixth in the early laps. Elliott Harper was running as high as second, but ended fourth in the leg. |
 That meant the overall standings were as follows:
(Position Name Nationality Car / Motor / ESC / Battery / Bodyshell / Radio)
EUROPEAN CHAMPION Ronald Volker DE Yokomo BD7-2014 / LRP X20 / LRP / LRP / Protoform / Sanwa
2nd Bruno Coelho PT Xray T4-14 / Nosram X20 / Nosram / Nosram / Protoform / Futaba
3rd Marc Rheinard DE Tamiya 419 / Muchmore / Muchmore / Thunder Power / Protoform / Sanwa
4th Jilles Groskamp NL Tamiya 419 / Orion VST2 / Orion / Orion / Protoform / Sanwa
5th Alexander Hagberg SE Xray T4-14 / ORCA RX3 / ORCA / ORCA / Protoform / Sanwa/AME
6th Elliott Harper GB Durango DETC410 / ORCA TX / ORCA / ORCA / Protoform / Sanwa
7th Freddy Sudhoff DE Awesomatix / LRP X20 / LRP / LRP / LRP / Protoform / Sanwa
8th Loic Jasmin FR Yokomo BD7-2014 / LRP X20 / LRP / LRP / Protoform / Sanwa
9th Viktor Wilck SE Tamiya 419 / Speed Passion V4 / Speed Passion / ORCA / Protoform / Sanwa
10th Steven Weiss DE Xray T4-14 / LRP X20 / LRP / LRP / Protoform / Sanwa |
| You can see our full video here, with ALL the action from the A Finals! |
