Volker top seed in South Africa
Practice at the Electric Touring Car World Championships in South Africa has finally concluded and it is the reigning champion Ronald Volker who is the top seed for qualifying. The Yokomo driver topped 2 of the three rounds of controlled practice but it it was his 3-consecutive laps from CP1 that was the time to beat. Bruno Coelho would top the final practice getting much closer to Volker than before, the fastest time separated by 0.073 of a second. While Coelho was happier with his CP3 pace, it was his team-mate Alexander Hagberg who made the biggest improvement in the final practice as he was second fastest with a time that moved him up to the No.3 seeding position. Like Volker, Viktor Wilck’s best time would come from CP1 leaving him 4th overall ahead of Christopher Krapp, who suffered a huge crash in CP2, and Freddy Sudhoff. In a change to the previously reported rule that drivers who have to run a set of tyres from CP1 or 2 in the opening qualifier all drivers will now have the option to run new tyres. There were complaints following the first two controlled practices regarding the definition of the ruling and the 95% race pace ruling. A number of drivers backed off considerably after posting 3-laps which would have seen a large percentage of drivers disqualified. Another issue arose from the fact the ruling was in the Stage Report but was deleted from the IFMAR rule book. In the end it was decided all drivers would be allowed new sets of tyres for CP3 and Q1 after which the new ruling regarding when a driver must choose new and used tyres will be implemented.
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