November 19, 2016

Orlowski brings home the win at EOS Poland

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Michal Orlowski delivered a convincing victory today in his home city of Warsaw today winning Round 2 of the Euro Offroad Series on the championship’s return to Poland.  With every sports person wanting to win in front of a home crowd, Orlowski claimed only his second ever EOS race win with conviction putting in an dominant 2WD performance in A2, something he would do again in A3 as a tactical championship move.  Having missed out on victory last season en route to becoming Vice-Champion for the second season running, today’s TQ and win puts the 15-year-old top of the championship table with the EOS next moving to the Hudy Arena – venue of his first EOS win.  Behind the Schumacher ace, reigning champion Lee Martin would claim second overall to move him into second in the standings.  Travelling to Poland as the early points leader it wasn’t to be a good race for Marc Rheinard, the Yokomo driver finishing a disappointing 9th. For Neil Cragg Poland would be somewhat of a break through for the Team Associated driver as he claimed his first podium finish, the European Champion proving much more competitive than he was at the season opener when he was only 6th.

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Reacting to his home win, Orlowski said, ‘Obviously I am very happy to take the win in Poland’.  With his last win coming in May 2015, he continued, ‘the car was good all weekend once we found the right set-up in free practice’. Commenting on A2 he said, ‘As I said before the plan was to make a gap at the beginning and then as the race would settle down control the pace out front and this time I did that and could take it home’.  He added, ‘Once I had around 1.5 seconds of a lead I could control the race making sure I didn’t slow the pace too much to allow them to catch me’.  On moving into the championship lead he said, ‘hopefully at the Hudy Arena we can also get another good result.  The car is a lot better now than in Round 1 and hopefully it will work similar to how it has performed here’.  Summing it up as a ‘great weekend’, 4WD still to run tomorrow, he said, ‘I have to thank Tris(tram Neal) and my dad for all the hard work ahead of this event. Trish gave me a very good car with which to do the job’.

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‘I always want to win but from the start we were not on a lightening pace and I think I drove well to get second because we definitely were not the fastest’, was how Martin summed up his 2WD performance.  Mounting his closest challenge to Orlowski in A3, he said, ‘I tried hard to hustle but he always had enough in hand to be honest and when he got out front I knew I had 2nd wrapped up unless we both messed up’.  Improving in his opening result of a 3rd at the Nurburgring, the British said the lesson from today was that ‘we need to go away and try harder’.

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Claiming his first EOS podium, Cragg said, ‘before I didn’t appreciate how hard the EOS is so to get my first podium I’m pretty pleased’.  The Team Associated driver added, ‘2nd was the best we could have got today and I got 3rd so it’s not bad and I hope we can carry that to the next round.  We learnt a lot of things here with the car.’  Asked about his closing final having been in a good battle for second with Martin, he said ‘I had one stupid crash then went to 8 or 9th. I’m angry with myself over my driving’.  Top Qualifier at last season’s finale but ending up 8th at that event, he concluded, ‘I need to work on my driving in the finals’.

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Finishing off the podium, Cragg’s 13-year-old Associated team-mate Joona Haatanen was happy with how he ended the race but felt had he had the same car starting out the event he could have challenged for his first EOS win.  From 9th on the grid, 4th was a great result for the highly talented Finn, him taking a 3rd place in A2.  Summing up Round 2 as ‘pretty hard’, he said he didn’t have the best of cars but a rear shock piston change was a break through for the finals with the car then ‘easy to drive’.  10th at the season opener, he said today’s result was ‘something to build on for the future’ and he is looking forward to the 2017 section of the championship.  Behind Haatanen, Christopher Krapp would finish 5th. A great drive in A3 – when he took 3rd after holding off Cragg, Krapp and Marc Rheinard – Jesper Rasmussen secured a 6th place finish.

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View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.



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