March 23, 2018

Haatanen takes Q3 at EOS

Three qualifiers have been completed at the penultimate round of the Euro Offroad Series in Austria and it is Joona Haatanen who becomes the third different driver to post a TQ run.  Following on from the Team Associated 1-2 lead by Neil Cragg in Q2, Haatanen put in a blistering third round with his B6.1 to better the previous best time set by Michal Orlowski in the opening run by 2-seconds.  It was reigning champion Orlowski who would be closest to Haatanen, the difference 3-seconds, with Xray’s Daniel Kobbevik making it an all ‘Young Guns’ Top 3.  With early errors putting Bruno Coelho, now out of contention for the overall TQ, and Cragg out of the Q3 running, it was former multiple champion Joern Neumann would get fourth ahead of Martin Bayer and Marc Rheinard.

While having the benefit of new tyres, only Orlowski and Cragg running used tyres, Haatanen said the biggest difference this time round was he managed to eliminate his ‘own stupid mistakes’ which left him with a best of P6 from the opening qualifiers.  Top Qualifier in Germany last season, the teenager admitting to almost throwing it away on the final lap as he came up too short on the triple on the last lap but luckily it ‘cost almost nothing’ and he took a confidence boosting TQ.  Planning to run an unchanged car and the same set of tyres for the final qualifier, the Finn concluded, ‘Hopefully I can get a similar time’, the overall TQ now a battle between him, Orlowski, Cragg and Elias Johansson.

‘Actually I’m pretty pleased with 2nd as it was my 3rd run on the same tyres’, was Orlowski’s reaction after Q3 adding, ‘Only me and Neil were on used tyres’.  The Schumacher driver continued, ‘It was almost a clean run but Neil crashed on the first lap and I couldn’t see his car and crashed’.  Friends with Haatanen off the track, he admitted he was ‘quick on new tyres’ but looking to the final showdown in Q4 concluded, ‘I’m sure my car will be quick the next one and I just need to make sure I make no mistakes’.

Kobbevik said, ‘I was a bit unlucky in the first two but this one was better’.  The Norwegian added, ‘I had just one small mistake this time’ declaring himself ‘very happy’ with his car’s set-up which have remained ‘the same all day’.  The 13-year-old said his aim for the closing qualifier which will bring Day 1 of EOS Wels to a close is to, ‘try to drive clean with no mistakes’, many drivers falling foul of the challenging track.

Neumann was pleased with his performance after being left frustrated by a clash with Coelho in the previous qualifier.  In Q3, the Schumacher driver was on for a P2 but over jumped the triple causing his car to double bounce and run wide and as he tried to get back on line he touched the back wheel of Bayer’s Xray causing his Cougar KF to roll with the 3-seconds lost dropping him to 4th. Pleased with his car’s performance the German said, ‘I just need to get a clean run’.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.



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