October 22, 2017

Coelho to start title defence from pole

Bruno Coelho is to start his 4WD title defence from pole with the Xray driving securing the overall 4WD TQ in Warsaw, Poland.  The Portuguese driver went into the fourth & final qualifier with only team-mate Martin Bayer able to deny him from becoming Top Qualifier for a second time at the Euro Offroad Series season opener.  Setting the TQ pace from team-mate Ty Tessmann he however suffered a CVD failure on his final lap allowing Tessmann post his first TQ run of his EOS debut weekend.  Behind, David Ronnefalk would back up his P3 in Q3 with a second for the round.  This result will see the HB Racing driver start as the best non Xray driver in 4th behind Bayer and youngster Daniel Kobbevik, Xray having a total of six cars in the A-Main.

Putting his front CVD failure down to a broken bearing following contact with the boards, Coelho said up to that his ‘car was very good’ and he was just controlling his pace by watching where Tessmann was.  On the finals, the back to back champion who is chasing his 7th 4WD EOS career win said, ‘I know the car is good so I will just try to drive clean runs and not make any mistakes’.

Enjoying a very competitive weekend in Warsaw, Bayer said, ‘I tested a few things in Q3 & 4 but will go back to the Q1 & 2 set-up.  It was much easier to drive’. Winner of the final round of last season’s championship, the former European Champion added, ‘Ty is very fast so we will see, but I feel ok for the finals’.

Tweaking his car set-up and making further speedo adjustments, Tessmann said the changes where ‘all in the right direction’. Running new tyres he said as expected the car was a little bit aggressive but ‘it still felt good’.  Asked of his expectations for the 4WD finals compared to 2WD in which he claimed a podium finish, the Canadian said, ‘I think it should be a little more interesting because everyone can push a little bit harder’.

‘All good’ was Ronnefalk summary of qualifying.  After a slow start yesterday, the Swede said, ‘now today we worked on the shock package and for the last one it was better. We were only 3/10ths behind so its pretty close. With three good drivers with a good car ahead of us I think its been a good result’. Running a prototype of HB Racing’s upcoming new 4WD kit release, he added, ‘there are a few small details we need to work on and we need to gain more experience with the new chassis layout we have here but that will come as we get a few more races under our belt but I hope we can mix it with the Xray’s today’.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.



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