Advantage Coelho after 4WD seeding at EOS Poland

Bruno Coelho holds the early advantage on the Euro Offroad Series’ return to Poland with the reigning champion topping seeding in Warsaw.  The Xray driver set the pace in both rounds of controlled practice, with his CP2 pace the quicker to leave him top of the time sheets by 0.242 of a second from 2WD top seed Michal Orlowski.  Having set the pace in the single round of 4WD free practice, Martin Bayer would end practice third with his CP1 time when he was second fastest to Coelho.  Outside the Top 3, Marc Rheinard would take his Yokomo to 4th ahead of team-mate & reigning champion Lee Martin with Kája Novotný 6th as Xray filled 6 of the Top 10 spots.

‘Very good as always’ was how Coelho summed up his car’s performance in practice.  Leaving his Hobbywing powered XB4 unchanged over the three 5-minute runs, the only thing he would do is fit a new set of the pre-glued Schumacher handout tyres.  Commenting on what is one of the tighter tracks to appear in recent times on the EOS, the World Champion said ‘it’s quite strange’ to drive in 4WD adding ‘it’s super fast’.  He continued, ‘There are no (corner) dots so you have to run very close to the pipe and when you touch them the car gets stuck in them’.   Looking to qualifying, which in a change to the regular EOS schedule will see 2 rounds run tonight, the Portuguese ace said, ‘it all looks good for qualifying’ pausing before adding ‘I hope’.

‘It’s going alright’ was Orlowski view of his 4WD practice.  The Polish teenager said having started out with a lack of steering which he said was down to his Schumacher not having enough rear rotation they improved the car each run.  Switching to a stiffer rear spring for CP2 he said that gave the car more rotation describing it now as ‘very good and consistent’.  Looking forward to qualifying, the former European Champion said it was ‘very difficult to not traction roll’ with the track having ‘a lot of 180 (degree corners)’.

Rheinard was rather upbeat by his performance saying ‘it was pretty good actually’ adding ‘we are getting close to the Xray boys’.  Running a different diff set-up in the XB4 to the season opener he said this is working better, with the car ‘easier to drive’.  Changing to a softer rear sway bar after the free practice the German said this improved the car in that it kept the buggy more on the ground under power.  Declaring qualifying will be ‘all about not crashing’ he said his aim for Q1 would be to ‘just try to make a clean run’.

Opting to try Rheinard’s set-up for the final practice, Martin said his YZ4 was ‘a little better to drive’.  The Brit added, ‘it still lacks a little slow corner speed but it’s not bad and it’s pretty consistent’.  Planning to ‘change just one small thing’ for Q1 he will overall leave it as it is for the opening qualifier.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.