March 16, 2019

Orlowski throws away A2 to hand Martin last lap win

Michal Orlowski threw away the chance to wrap up his first win of his EOS title defence with a last lap error which handed Lee Martin the A2 win.  Having won A1 with relative ease after an error from main rival Bruno Coelho, Orlowski would again get a break in A2 but this time the situation stemmed from the Schumacher driver getting out of shape causing Coelho to make unavoidable mistakes that saw the Xray driver flip and get passed by Martin.  Struggling to make back up the lost positions, Coelho decided to pull off, a decision that could be his making in A3. As Orlowski clocked off the laps and looked on target to sew up his 3-consecutive EOS win at the Hudy Arena, the large comfortable gap between himself and Martin remained static but then on the last lap Orlowski had a lapse in concentration. Turning in too early he put his car on its roof allowing Martin’s Yokomo to go through and take the win setting the stage for a three way battle for overall victory in A3.  Behind, Martin Bayer completed the Top 3 ahead of Adam Izsay.

Reacting to his A2 win a very happy Martin said, ‘the gap the whole race was basically where I started and he started on the grid’.  The championship leader continued, ‘you are almost going 100% so you can’t take big risks to try and make time.  I saw he (Orlowski) was not jumping the table top so I was settling for 2nd because he was going safe. Then he had a lucky crash, well lucky for me, unlucky for him. I’ll take it’.  Winner at EOS Daun last month, his first in 3 seasons, the British driver said, ‘I now have a 1 and a 3 which should get me a podium so I’m going to go all out for the win in A3’.

‘I threw it away. I only have myself to blame’, was how Orlowski described his error.  He explained, ‘I was looking at the finish line and relaxed too much. I turned in too early and clipped the corner’.  Quick to put the error to the back of his mind, the Pole continued, ‘there is still one more to go and Bruno has to beat my time from A1 which was pretty good. It was a clean one.  I’ll be at the front and able to control the race.  I just have to try make sure Lee doesn’t win and keep Bruno behind me’.

Coelho described his contact with Orlowski as ‘bad luck’.  The EOS Poland winner added, ‘My car was very good because I was on new tyres and I was attacking a lot. It was hard to make a pass because I didn’t want to make contact but then Michal made two mistakes and we touched on the second one and I flipped’.   With Orlowski throwing away the race in the same section of track in which Coelho’s race challenge came to an end, the former 4WD World Champion said, ‘Still open and if my car is still like it was in the last race I will be going for the win. I stopped to save my tyres so I think I am in the best position for the final’.

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