Coehlo takes Q2 at EOS

World Champion Bruno Coelho has TQ’d the second round of qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series in Slovakia.  Racing at the home of his Xray team, the Portuguese driver headed a 1-2 for the XB4 at the Hudy Arena with Martin Wollanka 2/10ths off his pace.  Having TQ’d last night’s opening 4WD qualifier after wrapping up his second 2WD win of the season, Lee Martin was third fastest ahead of the events winner for the last two season’s Martin Bayer.

‘Was good, I was driving safely’ was how Coelho summed up his performance.  Second fastest in Q1, he said after making ‘a lot of mistakes’ that lost him ‘a total of 8-seconds’ that result was lucky as others made mistakes too.  Aiming to start the day with a clean run he would have just one mistake after his car ‘jumped strange’ and flipped on the landing.  Dropping him off the TQ pace he said he had to ‘push a little harder to get back the TQ again’.  Posting the fastest lap of the round he is planning to leave his LRP powered XB4 the same for Q3, the 22-year-old added  ‘the car is pretty good so there is nothing to change’.

Team-mate Wollanka said he was nervous for the first part of the run but settled down and in the end it was a good run.  Fitting a slipper to his car, the Austrian said it helped with the braking but in other area it was not as good as a normal spur gear.  Also changing front caster blocks, he plans to try the slipper again in Q3 before switching back for the final qualifier to give him a back to back comparison.

Martin was not impressed by his own driving this morning saying things ‘didn’t really click’.  In an early mistake he would jump long on the track’s deceiving double that has caught out every driver, leading to a crash that cost 3-seconds.  Despite ‘not pushing’ after this he said he would still end up missing lines through the corners.  Also making a shock change to his Muchmore powered YZ4, he said its was ‘not as good as expected’ and they will change it again for Q3.  Team-mate Marc Rheinard would complete the Top 6 with his YZ4.  The Tamiya Touring Car ace said it was ‘just a steady run but I had one crash’ and when asked about Q1 he replied ‘it wasn’t my day yesterday’.  Qualifying 3rd for the 2WD A-Main he would finish 5th and in Q1 of 4WD he was only 12th fastest.

Chasing a third consecutive EOS 4WD win at the Hudy Arena this weekend, Bayer described his second qualifier as ‘not too bad’.  Only P11 in Q1 something he put down to the ‘driver (being) still in 2WD mode’, the World Championship finalist said he tried to be safe this morning but also reported an issue with power.  With a lack for feeling from the throttle which he changed over the run he said he needs to check it over for his next run.  Behind the 3 time EOS race winner was his younger brother Ales.  Having retired from Q1 with power issues, he said a change of speedo settings had rectified the problem and happy with his XB4 he will just fit new tyres for Q3.

Fourth in Q1, former champion Joern Neumann would take his Serpent SRX4 to P7 just ahead of young Team Associated talent Joona Haatanen.  The German said the run was ‘OK, (but had) a few bobbles’ but he was happy with the fact he improved his best lap time by 1/10.  Happy also to have reached his goal of making the A-Main, 4th and 7th expected to be enough, he said he needs to make the buggy a little easier to drive and he will lower the ride height for the next one.

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