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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