May 18, 2019

Orlowski masters difficult conditions to take A1

With the sun now shining and the track conditions improving slightly over yesterday, it was Michal Orlowski who won A1 of the Euro Offroad Series here at the Arena33, taking full advantage of his pole position to win by a large margin. Behind it was Joona Haatanen who came through from 5th on the grid to take the runner up spot with Bruno Coelho falling back to 3rd. Fourth place would go to former champion Jorn Neumann who had a nice battle with eventual 5th place finisher Daniel Kobbevik with Paul Crompton who had a terrible first lap, recovered to complete the top 6. Asked about his run Orlowski said ‘the track is developing some dry spots’ which the Polish teenager confirmed in marshalling following his main, using the opportunity to inspect the track surface. With the now drying track, the Schumacher driver will switch back to his Cougar Laydown for A2 ‘so there is lots of work to do’, ending by saying ‘I’m glad I got the win, it makes my life easier in the next one’.

Young Finnish star Haatanen put in a master class of steady driving as he took his Associated buggy through the carnage to take a well deserved 2nd place, albeit some 5 seconds back on Orlowski. Changing to a softer rear shock oil he said it felt better that run but they are still looking for some grip summing up his run by saying ‘finally I had some pace compared to Michal and Bruno’.

Bruno Coelho described his run as just ‘ok’ having benefitted from the crash at the start between van Helmond and Crompton. Directly after he was able to run with Michal but admitted that was only because he was making lots of small mistakes and once the Polish driver got his head down he was able to pull away. Running in 2nd for most of the race, a mistake on the right side of the track saw the Xray driver get caught on a pipe which allowed Haatanen through to 2nd. For A2 he will make some changes to the car to try to make more traction.

Taking 4th place, Schumacher driver Jorn Neumann said that his race had started very badly having crashed on the first lap, losing about 1.5 seconds. Recovering from that earlier problem and with the top 3 already so far ahead he was pleased to have a good fight with Xray driver Daniel Kobbevik in the latter stages, the young Norwegian even make a solid attempt on the last lap but the German was able to hold on for 4th, something Jorn said ‘was good considering the tough conditions’. With Kobbevik in 5th, Crompton took a disappointed 6th, with Xray trio of Martin Bayer, Hupo Honigl and Max Gotzl covering 7th to 9th while Wesley van Helmond brought up the rear of the field.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.



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