November 22, 2015

Coelho wins in Slovakia to share EOS lead with Martin

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World Champion Bruno Coelho kept Xray’s unbeaten record at the Hudy Arena intact by claiming his first Euro Offroad Series victory today with a dominant and important win in A3.  Going into the closing race of the Slovakian event, three drivers stood a chance of the Round 2 victory with Coelho needing to do the most to deny A1 winner Martin Wollanka and A2 winner Lee Martin the win.  Top Qualifier for his team’s home event, the Portuguese ace would put in a stunning drive to not just win the leg but set the all important fastest race time. Running 14 laps over the 5-minutes, the only driver to do so over the 3 legs, this would give him the tie break, all three drivers ending up on the same points with a win and 2nd each. While Martin would finish second to Coelho in the deciding race, Wollanka’s A2 winning time would secure the Austrian second with third meaning both the reigning champion and Coelho are now tied at the top of the points standings.

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‘There was no time for prisoners, I didn’t care about the guys behind.  I just pushed as I had to win in the fastest time’, was how Coelho summed up his faultless A3 performance.  Adding more toe out to his LRP powered XB4, this gave him more steering and describing the car as ‘brilliant’ he said he was ‘full throttle from the beginning to the end’.  Having not raced 1:10 Offroad since the World Championships in Japan at the start of October, the 22-year-old said this was a mistake as his ‘driving was not good’ this weekend and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.  Planning to do a lot of testing between now and Round 3 of the championship in January in Germany, the professional driver having a busy schedule that includes racing all of Xray’s products, he said today’s result means the EOS title is game on.

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Wollanka was understandably a little disappointed with second, a result he also achieved at the opening round at the Nurburgring in September.  Reflecting on the three finals he said the start of A2 when contact dropped him to the back of the field, from which he recovered to finish second, cost him the chance of claiming his first overall EOS victory.  A driver with a 1:8 Offroad background, he has been a serious contender from the start of EOS Season #5 but feels he is ‘still learning’.  In A3 he said contact on the second lap with Martin’s Yokomo, which sent his XB4 tumbling, lost him any chance of the challenge for a second win of the day.  Setting the fastest lap of the final he would recover from 5th to finish 3rd 2-seconds back from Martin, Coelho’s 14th lap being a victory lap.

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‘I don’t think people expected us to be so close given its Xray’s home track, we just missed out on the TQ and were not to far from winning’ was Martin’s summary of 4WD.  Winner of 2WD yesterday, extending his lead in the standings, the Brit said without his mistake in Leg 1 it could have been an different outcome. He said third ‘keeps (them) in the hunt (for the title)’ and ‘it could be a counting round but hopefully not’.  While they ‘battled hard’ with Xray he said they need to work a little harder in certain areas but he is confident for Round 3 they will comeback even stronger.  Asked about A3, he said he lost a bit of time to Coelho at the start which he could make back adding he thinks his tyres were too far gone for him to challenge for the leg win.  Behind Martin, Ales Bayer would claim his best EOS finish ahead of former Champion Joern Neumann.  From last on the grid David Ronnefalk completed the Top 6 ahead of last season’s Hudy Arena winner Martin Bayer.

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