October 25, 2014

Matsukura TQs opening EOS qualifier

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Defending 2WD champion Naoto Matsukura TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series season opener in Poznan, Poland, this morning. The Yokomo driver took the first of the six qualifiers by over 3.5 seconds from Team Durango’s Michal Orlowski with Yokomo team-mate & practice pace setter Lee Martin completing the Top 3.

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Describing the track as having ‘low traction’ and ‘loose’ compared to yesterday’s practice, Matsukura said his B-Max2 had a ‘good feeling so (it was) no problem’.  Happy to open qualifying with a TQ run and the only driver to run a 19-second lap, the Japanese ace said while he went for a safe run he had ‘many mistakes’ but he was ‘still able to keep it going’.  Asked if he planned to push in Q2, the newly crowned Touring Car World Champion said the track didn’t reward such driving and he would just try to repeat his Q1 drive but with a few less mistakes.

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‘Very good’ was how Orlowski summed up his run to second.  Describing the setup of his DEX210 as ‘perfect’, the 13-year-old said while he was not the fastest he was able to run very consistent and without any mistakes.  Adding that Martin without crashes is faster, the Polish talent said for Q2 he would just leave everything the same and try to repeat a clean 5-minutes.

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Like Matsukura, Martin described the track as ‘a little loose’ especially the wooden sections.  The 2WD Buggy World Championship Runner-up said he drove a little conservatively with further time lost to a mistake. Planning to redo the oil in his shocks, saying in Q1 they ‘felt like they needed doing’, for him apart from that for the second qualifier it was just a case of ‘go again’.

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Setting the fourth fastest time, Carson Wernimont was content with his opening run saying it was a ‘decent run’ adding it was ‘nice & safe I guess’.  Running his Cougar KF the same as he ran it in the final practice, the American said while overall it felt pretty good it was a little loose on exiting the corners.  Running a P2 time for a while before getting held up as he caught a pack of drivers, he plans to make a few changes for Q2 to try and improve the car’s forward drive.

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Apologising to Joern Neumann for an early coming together with the European Champion, Oliver Scholtz said other than this unfortunate mistake he was happy with the rest of the run.  Leaving his Team C unchanged from practice other than fitting a new set of Schumacher’s handout Mini Pin tyres, the 19-year-old said he planned to continue with the car as is for the next qualifier.

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Sixth fastest Hupo Honigl said his Team C was good but he just made a ‘stupid mistake’.  Catching traffic he said he got impatient and tried a pass that resulted in him crashing and losing 3-seconds.  Without the mistake the winner of this event last year said his TM2 V2 is easily good enough for ‘Top 3 minimum’ runs.

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British EOS regular David Poulter would take his Schumacher to seventh just ahead of the cars designer Tom Cockerill.  Having ‘got lost yesterday’ with his set-up, after making a lot of changes for qualifying Poulter said ‘they clearly seemed to work’.  Originally thinking of making a few changes for Q2 he said based on his result he will hold off and instead play safe and try to go for another strong result in Q2.

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‘A lot better than yesterday, I turned up for a race meeting today’ was Cockerill’s reaction to his run.  Having not made the Top 10 in practice, last year’s Top Qualifier said the big improvement was mainly from the driver but he also improved his car by reverting to his ‘standard carpet set-up’.  Having ran the same low grip conversion set-up as Wernimont yesterday, which moves the motor back 21mm in the car, he said it didn’t suit his driving.  Having ‘binned it’ once during the qualifier he said his car was ‘now pretty decent’ and he hoped to build on his improved performance over the remaining five qualifiers.

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With the Top 10 completed by Team C’s Tom Maquel and Xray’s Martin Wollanka, the round would see Neumann pull up after 8-laps.  The German said his DEX210 felt good but after getting collected by Scholtz at the crossover and then crashing again later on the same lap his run was done.  A driver who himself admits he suffers from ‘crazy tyre wear’ he said with only 3-set of tyres for the six qualifiers and a big difference between new and used he opted to pull off to save the tyres for another run.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.



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