Cragg is 2WD Top Qualifier in Austria

Neil Cragg is the 2WD Top Qualifier for the penultimate round of the Euro Offroad Series in Austria tomorrow.  The winner in Germany, the Associated driver went into the fourth & final qualifier as one of four drivers in contention for the overall TQ but in the dying seconds of the top heat the British driver managed to out pace Bruno Coelho for his second TQ of the day and his third EOS career TQ.  Behind, championship leader Michal Orlowski will line-up second, a mistake on the table top ending his quest for the bonus championship point while Coelho’s second in the final qualifier salvaged him 3rd on the starting grid ahead of Q3 pace setter Joona Haatanen.

‘I suppose the plan worked out’, was Cragg’s reaction after pipping Coelho by 2/10ths to secure pole for the A-Main.  The former 2WD World Champion said, ‘I saved tyres by doing 3 runs on my first set so I would have new for the final one. I was really pleased with my driving too.  The car was perfect and hope for the same again tomorrow in the finals’.  Asked about the finals and the track layout for racing he replied, ‘it might be sketchy starting into the double jump but I think it will make for good racing, its fast and flowing’.

Orlowski said, ‘I made a very costly mistake at the table top, another crash there but this time it was on the most important run of the day’.  The Schumacher driver, who went into the deciding qualifier with a faster TQ time than Cragg, added, ‘I was hoping Bruno stayed in front but unfortunately he didn’t I now I start second’.  On the finals, the reigning champion said, ‘ I don’t think the track is that difficult but I hear others saying it is.  There is lots of speed on the track so I think there will be lots of action’.

Coelho was pleased with his own performance in Q4 saying ‘it was a clean round for me with no mistakes but from the middle to the end I was dropping lap times. It was not me but something mechanical or electronic and I need to check for this.  It was really slow at the end. I was in front but I lose everything in the end.  3rd on the grid is good for all the mess I made in qualifying today but I expected more for sure’.  Giving his thoughts on the chance to race for position in the finals he replied, ‘I think the track is too difficult. It is going to be more about who makes the least mistakes and not about out and out racing’.

One of the contenders for the overall TQ, Haatanen could only manage 9th in Q4. The young Finn said, ‘too many mistakes. It was only my stupid mistakes because the car was super good. I was just trying too hard’.  The 14-year-old said, ‘I think I have good pace and I hope for better driving for the finals’.  Behind the Associated driver, Marc Rheinard will lead the Yokomo challenge from 5th as team-mate Lee Martin just scraped into the final in 9th behind Daniel Kobbevik, Jörn Neumann and Elias Johansson with Martin Bayer completing the 10-car grid.

View complete event results here.

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Haatanen takes Q3 at EOS

Three qualifiers have been completed at the penultimate round of the Euro Offroad Series in Austria and it is Joona Haatanen who becomes the third different driver to post a TQ run.  Following on from the Team Associated 1-2 lead by Neil Cragg in Q2, Haatanen put in a blistering third round with his B6.1 to better the previous best time set by Michal Orlowski in the opening run by 2-seconds.  It was reigning champion Orlowski who would be closest to Haatanen, the difference 3-seconds, with Xray’s Daniel Kobbevik making it an all ‘Young Guns’ Top 3.  With early errors putting Bruno Coelho, now out of contention for the overall TQ, and Cragg out of the Q3 running, it was former multiple champion Joern Neumann would get fourth ahead of Martin Bayer and Marc Rheinard.

While having the benefit of new tyres, only Orlowski and Cragg running used tyres, Haatanen said the biggest difference this time round was he managed to eliminate his ‘own stupid mistakes’ which left him with a best of P6 from the opening qualifiers.  Top Qualifier in Germany last season, the teenager admitting to almost throwing it away on the final lap as he came up too short on the triple on the last lap but luckily it ‘cost almost nothing’ and he took a confidence boosting TQ.  Planning to run an unchanged car and the same set of tyres for the final qualifier, the Finn concluded, ‘Hopefully I can get a similar time’, the overall TQ now a battle between him, Orlowski, Cragg and Elias Johansson.

‘Actually I’m pretty pleased with 2nd as it was my 3rd run on the same tyres’, was Orlowski’s reaction after Q3 adding, ‘Only me and Neil were on used tyres’.  The Schumacher driver continued, ‘It was almost a clean run but Neil crashed on the first lap and I couldn’t see his car and crashed’.  Friends with Haatanen off the track, he admitted he was ‘quick on new tyres’ but looking to the final showdown in Q4 concluded, ‘I’m sure my car will be quick the next one and I just need to make sure I make no mistakes’.

Kobbevik said, ‘I was a bit unlucky in the first two but this one was better’.  The Norwegian added, ‘I had just one small mistake this time’ declaring himself ‘very happy’ with his car’s set-up which have remained ‘the same all day’.  The 13-year-old said his aim for the closing qualifier which will bring Day 1 of EOS Wels to a close is to, ‘try to drive clean with no mistakes’, many drivers falling foul of the challenging track.

Neumann was pleased with his performance after being left frustrated by a clash with Coelho in the previous qualifier.  In Q3, the Schumacher driver was on for a P2 but over jumped the triple causing his car to double bounce and run wide and as he tried to get back on line he touched the back wheel of Bayer’s Xray causing his Cougar KF to roll with the 3-seconds lost dropping him to 4th. Pleased with his car’s performance the German said, ‘I just need to get a clean run’.

View complete event results here.

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Cragg leads AE 1-2 in Q2

Neil Cragg led a Team Associated 1-2 in the second round of 2WD qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series, the EOS Daun winner topping the times in Austria from young Swedish team-mate Elias Johansson.  Again the qualifier would see mistakes, or lack of mistakes, decide the result.  Having taken the opening qualifier, Michal Orlowski looked on target to repeat but working through traffic he had contact with Round 1 podium finisher Daniel Kobbevik.  Getting out of his rhythm as a result, on the next lap the Schumacher driver had a costly mistake eventually ending up 6th fastest for the round.  Another to challenge for the TQ, Bruno Coelho would collect Marc Rheinard who had put his Yokomo on its roof leaving the Top Seed with a tweaked car leading to a subsequent incident in which a mistake from the Xray driver ended up costing Joern Neumann around 5-seconds in the wall section.  At the end of the 5-minutes it was Coelho who recovered to complete the Top 3 ahead of Rheinard and Lee Martin.

‘Everyone is crashing a lot so I was just trying to keep going with no crashes’, was how Cragg summed up his TQ.  The former World Champion continued, ‘I made a couple of little mistakes, it was a little scrappy but overall the outcome was pretty good’.  He continued, ‘the car is good and I’m just going with the ‘nice & steady wins races’ approach’.

Having had his battery die in Q1, Johansson put his improved time simply down to changing to a ‘bigger one for the second one’.  One of the stars of this year’s DHI Cup, where he finished on the podium, the tall 13-year-old said his car ‘feels really good’ with him having to make no changes since first hitting the track which he declared is ‘great fun’ to drive.  Running in the second fastest heat having seeded 13th quickest, he plans to just try and repeat the run in Q3.

Ending up over 2-seconds down on Cragg but posting the fastest lap, Coelho said, ‘everything was good in the beginning but Marc had a mistake and I crashed into him hard’.  The Round 1 winner continued, ‘My car was not very good after that, it felt tweaked after the crash so to get 3rd even with the car like this is OK’.

Losing 4-seconds following the mistake, admitting Coelho had nowhere to go because his car was stranded in the racing line, Rheinard was overall pleased with 4th as it books his spot in the A-Main.  Still struggling with a lack of corner speed, the former race winner said after the crash, he did push a little harder than he had to in Q1 to get back some time but he was still driving safe and now that he had two good points, 2 of 4 to count, he will use the third qualifier to ‘see where the limit is’.  He concluded, ‘we are still missing something but we are still ok compared to the others except Bruno who is still the fastest out there’.

Improving 2 spots on his opening time, Lee Martin said, ‘I tried to drive fast but it just doesn’t have corner speed, the last two races were the same.  I’m not sure if my car is tweaked so Pumpi (Thomas Pumpler) is now putting exactly the same set-up as Marc on my car.  I know he can drive around pretty good’.  Yokomo’s lead offroad driver in the championship, he concluded, ‘at the moment I’m just trying to make the main’.

View complete event results here.

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Orlowski TQs opening qualifier at EOS Wels

Despite running off the drivers stand during the warm-up because his car’s drivetrain was making funny noises, it was Michal Orlowski who has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series in Austria.  Fifth in seeding, the Schumacher driver was able to take up his starting position after some quick work to put in place some offending missing screws and the Pole was further in luck when top seed Bruno Coelho hit trouble in traffic while on for a TQ run.  With Coelho dropping to fourth, Orlowski topped Q1 by over a second from Neil Cragg with Marc Rheinard a surprise 3rd.

Asked about the slight panic before the opening qualifier, Orlowski said, ‘some screws were not in the car’.  With the car right for the start of the heat, he continued, ‘because of what happened my first few laps were not so good and I lost time with a bobble on the first lap. I tried to calm down a bit but then drove too careful’.  He added, ‘I couldn’t really hear what Scotty (Ernst) was saying because the sound is not very good in the hall but I saw Bruno had a mistake and from then started to pushed harder to get back in it and it paid off with the TQ’.

‘A solid run but not 100%’, was how Cragg summed up his first qualifying attempt.  The Associated driver added, ‘I hit a crashed car off a jump which cost me a bit of time. It was nobody’s fault but second place is a good start so I can’t complain. It’s always nice to get a banker in the first one’.  On his car the Daun winner said, ‘its pretty good. We’ll stay the same for Q2, we don’t need to change it’.

Rheinard described Q1 as ‘a safe run’.  The Yokomo driver said, ‘in practice we were lacking corner speed so I decided to just go safe.  It didn’t feel fast but my lap times are not bad’ – the German laying down the third fastest lap time behind fastest man Joona Haatanen and Coelho.  Describing his car as ‘edgy with no corner speed’, team-mate Lee Martin also having similar issues and seeding in the second fastest heat, the touring car ace concluded, ‘3rd is good for me so I can’t complain. It is important to make the main so I’ll go for another safe run in the next one and leave the car as it is’.

Explaining what happened to him, Coelho said, ‘I was overtaking a slower guy and jumped wide so had to use full steering and flipped and lost 2.5-seconds’. He continued, ‘the heat started very good and I was very confident.  After the mistake I forced to try and get back time but on this track it’s impossible’.

Completing the Top 5 ahead of Haatanen, Joern Neumann said his qualifier ‘started out really nice’ but then he ‘landed the triple a little too short and lost 2 or 3-seconds’.  The Schumacher driver would double his deficit when ‘Kája and me both tried to jump together and hit each other in the air and I lost another 3-second so to still get 5th its pretty OK’.  Improving his car from practice by going with a softer shock for the flat landing he was having issue with, the multiple former EOS Champion is confident he can be in the mix in Q2.

View complete event results here.

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Coelho tops 2WD seeding at EOS

Having missed the previous round of the Euro Offroad Series due to touring car commitments, Bruno Coelho marked his return to the championship at Wels, Austria by topping seeding for 2WD qualifying.  The penultimate round of the championship, the Xray driver set the fastest 2-consecutive laps around the 20-second lap track ahead of Neil Cragg and Joern Neumann. Coming into the weekend at the top of the points table, defending Champion Michal Orlowski posted the 5th fastest time 2/10ths down on Coelho.

Summing up his morning at Modellbau Wels, drivers having had 3 rounds of free practice followed by two timed runs, Coelho said, ‘It was ok but it is not perfect yet, we are still working on the car’.  Sporting glasses this weekend, the Portuguese driver added, ‘it is a fast track and it has many sweepers and we need to work the car completely different.  Normal we turn into 180s (corners)’.  Winner of the season opener, on this weekend’s layout he said, ‘I think the track is very difficult.  Everyone is on the same pace but it’s not a track you can force on to try and make a difference to your pace’.  Asked about consistency going into the first of the four qualifiers, all of which will run today, he replied, ‘I think I am stronger on consistency than (outright) speed’.

Reacting to his P2 seeding, Cragg said, ‘My car has been pretty good all day.  I had a big ass crash in the first timed practice and so Craig (Drescher) was been wrenching his ass off to get it ready for the last’.  The Team Associated driver, who was quickest after the 3 rounds of free practice, continued, ‘the car is good and easy to drive. We’ll just check a few things for qualifying but it is pretty good so I think we’ll leave as is’.  Team-mate Joona Haatanen would take his example to the 6th fastest time.

Coming into the weekend off the back of making a return to the podium at the Hudy Arena last month, Neumann declared he was ‘doing pretty good’.  Third quickest, the Schumacher driver said, ‘we tried a couple of things but went back to what I used before.  The car is good everywhere except at the centre single where it is bouncing on the flat landing.  We will try to improve that by going a little lighter in the shocks for qualifying’.

Fourth fastest in seeding, Kája Novotný said, ‘After China this is much easier’, the Xray driver having raced at the Sunpadow International Offroad Grand Prix last weekend at the same location as last year’s EP Offroad Worlds.  The Czech driver added, ‘I did not have time to practice at the Hudy Arena before the race so it’s going pretty good so far’.  On his car he said, ‘It is the same set-up I used at the last EOS with just a just 1 or 2 changes I have made over the morning.  The car is good, I only need to improve my driving’.

Orlowski said practice he was ‘going alright’ adding the ‘didn’t change too much on the car’.  The Pole feels the track is changing every run saying, ‘we made a change to the car and it was like we did the opposite (change)’.  He continued, ‘my pace is pretty good and I was very consistent in the last one which is good for qualifying’.

View complete event results here.

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Track Focus – ‘Modellbau Wels’

Name – Modellbau Wels
Host – EOS
Country – Austria
Location – Wels (200km West of Vienna)
Direction – Anti-clockwise
Surface – All carpet
Previous EOS races hosted – 3 (2017, 2015 & 2014)

The Euro Offroad Series is in Wels, Austria for a fourth time, the championship again part of the ‘Modellbau Wels’ hobby show which takes place in the city’s Messe.  First included in 2014 at the popular 3-day show, which has exhibits of everything from RC boats & planes to large scale steam trains, last year the race concluded the championship but this season it is the penultimate encounter on the calendar with a lot of stake for the title contenders.  Moved to the BRP Rotax Halle, named after the country’s famous engine brand, for 2018 the same ATA crew that built the tracks for the opening two rounds of the season in Poland and Daun have created a 198m long lap within the 24m deep by 30m wide track area.

Coming into the event as leader of both the 2WD and 4WD standings, Michal Orlowski described the track as ‘nothing special’ adding ‘I like some sections but others are not my cup of tea’, the Polish driver clearly picking up some British phrases from his English engineer Tristram Neal.  Elaborating on the layout he said, ‘it is a pretty fast, open layout with some tight sections in the middle.  There is a nice triple that is tricky for most of the guys.  The wall is the same as in Daun and is pretty tricky so you can gain lots of time there’.  2WD winner in Daun, Neil Cragg described the layout as ‘your classic generic EOS layout with the same obstacles just moved around a bit’.  Asked the main challenges of the track he replied, ‘the jump before the wall section and the section after the straight, it’s important not to go too fast through it’.  He concluded the track is ‘pretty good’ and he is ‘enjoying driving it’.

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