Honigl TQs opening 2WD Qualifier at EOS Finale

Team C’s Hupo Honigl TQ’d the opening round of 2WD qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series this morning in Wels, Austria.  The only driver to complete 15-laps over the 5-minute qualifier, the Austria headed both his rivals for the overall EOS Championship title with Naoto Matsukura and defending champion Joern Neumann completing the Top 3.

Pleased to kick off the first of the four qualifiers with a TQ run, his rivals appartently not liking the early start, Honigl said the run was the first time his TM2 V2 ‘felt really good’ on a brand new set of Pro-Line’s hand out tyre.  Making changes to his buggy as he looked for more steering at the end of the straight, while it didn’t cure that problem it did make the buggy better through other sections of the track.  The winner of the season opener joked he thought he knew what he was doing when he made the change but it cured something totally different and he hopes the next change he makes actually improves his steering at the end of the straight.

Setting the fastest lap of the round with a 20.557, Matsukura said ‘car good, me shit’.  Laying down a TQ pace early on the Japanese ace crashed twice at the same spot on the track.  Happy with his B-Max 2’s performance he said he will leave it as is for Q2 and instead focus on improving his driving adding that by then he should have woken up.

‘Just too many mistakes’, that was how Neumann summed up his opening qualifier.  Having topped yesterday’s timed practice the German lead away the top heat but crashed on the opening lap allowing Matsukura to the front.  Chasing his first 2WD win of the season, the 5-time race winner said his DEX210 was ‘OK’ and attributed his poor driving to it being ‘maybe too early in the morning’.

‘Could be worse’ was how Lee Martin described his run to the fourth fastest time with his idler gear starting to go in the final minute of the run.  The Yokomo driver said he ‘hate(s) early morning runs’ and as a result he didn’t drive very well.  Still working on getting his Viper powered B-Max 2 to land better he will now try a piston change in his rear shocks for Q2.

Setting the 5th fastest time Schumacher team leader Tom Cockerill described his qualifier as a steady run but said on checking the times afterwards he was a little frustrated as he was just 1/10th of a third for the round.  The British driver said they are ‘being killed’ out of the slow corners and for Q2 he will change to a short wheelbase set-up on his Cougar.  Team-mate Carson Wernimont, who is making his European race debut this weekend, would claim 12th for the round just behind Round 3 race winner Martin Bayer.

Behing young Polish talent Michal Orlowski, who completed the Top 6 with his Durango, were the Team Associated’s of Juho Levanen and Peter Pinisch.  Running the new B5M for the first time, multiple European Touring Car Champion Levanen said overnight changes to the car had improved it quite a bit over yesterday’s practice.  Commenting on the main difference between the new car and the Centro C4.2 he campaigned at the previous EOS encounters he said the B5M ‘jumps a lot better which for a touring car driver helps a lot’.  Planning further set-up changes for  Q2 the Finn said he is looking to find a balance between having enough steering but not too much.

2WD Buggy Qualifying Round 1 – Top 10 times
1. Hupo Hoingl – Team C – 15/5:20.523
2. Naoto Matsukura – Yokomo – 14/5:00.051
3. Joern Neumann – Durango – 14/5:05.226
4. Lee Martin – Yokomo – 14/5:05.283
5. Tom Cockerill – Schumacher – 14/5:05.323
6. Michal Orlowski – Durango – 14/5:07.515
7. Juho Levanen – Associated – 14/5:07.551
8. Peter Pinisch – Associated – 14/5:08.565
9. Shin Adachi – Yokomo – 14/5:10.103
10. Oskar Levin – Team C – 14/5:11.308

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.