Coelho 4WD Top Qualifier at EOS Daun

Bruno Coelho is Top Qualifier for the second round of the Euro Offroad Series in Germany, the Xray driver return to his dominant 4WD form after a difficult 2WD race at the new Sporthotel & Resort Grafenwald venue.  Winner of the season from the TQ, the reigning champion clinched his 12th EOS career TQ when he made it three from three in the third round of qualifying with Michal Orlowski once again his closest rival.  Topping the fourth & final qualifier, Orlowski will start second with Marc Rheinard making it three different manufacturers at the front of the grid ahead of his Yokomo team-mate Lee Martin with Hupo Honigl completing the top half of the grid.

Commenting on the Q3 run than put the TQ beyond the reach of his rivals, Coelho said, ‘I was able to make no mistakes that time, the only trouble I had was contact with other drivers’.  Finishing only 10th in 2WD having dominated the season opener in Poland, he continued, ‘Its not easy here because the car is not perfect like the last races so we are still working to improve the car’.  Popping a camber link off his XB4 in Q4, he added, ‘this track is about no mistakes so I will just try to start clean.  Orlowski is going to make a lot of pressure in the final so it will be a difficult race for sure.  Until now though things are going much better than in 2WD but I don’t know how it will finish’.

Again missing out on the TQ as he did in 2WD to Neil Cragg, on his Q4 run Orlowski said, ‘It started off good. I was new tyres and had a big mistake at the hairpin but got marshalled pretty quick.  I pushed to get back to the front and when Bruno broke I just kept doing my laps’.  On the finals, the Polish teenager said, ‘I am going to use the same car, the same set-up.  I will try to make no mistakes and be patient behind Bruno and I hope for the best. I know I am quick’.

Taking a somewhat surprise 3rd on the grid thanks to a second in the final qualifier, Rheinard said, ‘All my qualifiers were good. I was on new tyres for the last one so it was twitchy. I had some bad laps at the beginning but towards the end I was pretty quick’.  Asked his thoughts on the track, the 4 time Onroad World Champion back here in the same venue for next weekend’s Euro Touring Series second round, he said, ‘It challenging but it has some nice jump combinations. The one after the wall is tough.’  On the finals the German said, ‘everyone is doing mistakes so its going to be interesting finals, hectic for sure’.

Demoted to 4th by Rheinard after a tough final qualifier, Martin said, ‘I just crashed too much’.  The former champion continued, ‘the finals are going to be just mayhem’.  The Brit said ‘I’m feeling groggy today’, concluding, ‘I’m just going to drive around and see how it goes’.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.

Chassis Focus – Bruno Coelho

Chassis: Xray XB4 ’18
Motor: Hobbywing 5.5T G3
ESC: Hobbywing Xerun XR10 Pro
Batteries: Sunpadow 4500mAh
Radio/Servo: Sanwa/Savox
Tires: Schumacher (handout)
Body: Lightweight
Remarks – Xray team driver Bruno Coelho is set to start from pole for today’s A-Main with his XB8 ’18 edition. His buggy is equipped with a number of aluminium options including the new 2.5mm chassis, front double joint driveshafts and steel gear diffs. In the electronic department we also find some news, as the Portuguese is using a pre-production “G3” motor from Hobbywing due to hit the market in about one month and batteries from new sponsor Sunpadow. Bruno is also using Hiro Seiko titanium and aluminium screws and a WTF cooling fan.

Image Gallery

Coelho doubles up in Q2

Bruno Coelho has capped off what started out as a tough day in 2WD by ending Day 2 of the Euro Offroad Series in Germany with a second TQ run in 4WD.  Having taken the opening qualifier, Coelho looked to have thrown away Q2 with a costly 5-second mistake in the second minute.  This allowed David Ronnefalk to go top of the timing screens but the he too would get caught out by the challenging Daun track.  Top seed Michal Orlowski then took a turn as the TQ pace setter but he couldn’t complete the run without a mistake allowing a hard charging Coelho to get back to the front to finish 3/10th up on the Schumacher driver.  Having failed to start Q1, Marc Rheinard would complete the Top 3, with his Yokomo team-mate Lee Martin having a tough second run and ending up P7.  Retiring from Q1, Ronnefalk would stop clock with the fourth fastest time ahead of Hupo Honigl and youngster Daniel Kobbevik.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.

Coelho back in business as 4WD qualifying gets underway

After a disastrous result in 2WD, coming into the weekend as points leader but finishing up 10th, Bruno Coelho is back in business as Round 2 of the Euro Offroad Series switched to 4WD with the Xray driver taking the opening qualifier. Second fastest in seeding the reigning champion would top the times from Lee Martin and Hupo Honigl with a number of drivers hitting problems in the first of the four qualifiers.  Having just secured his first EOS win earlier in the evening, Neil Cragg was on a TQ pace in the second fastest heat when he took a corner off his car.  At the start of the top heat, Marc Rheinard never left the line due to a dead speedo, while David Ronnefalk suffered a thermal shut down and Michal Orlowski lost drive with a minute to go while in the mix for the TQ.

‘I’m actually surprised because I had so many small mistakes trying to get used to 4WD again after 2WD’, was Coelho’s reaction to his TQ.  Top Qualifier and winner of the season opener, he continued, ‘for sure it’s a good start after how 2WD went but the car is not perfect. It is very difficult to drive and I think Orlowski is faster.  We will work on it for the next one to get it better’.

Summing up his opening run to the second fastest time Martin was frank with his thoughts saying, ‘It felt like an animal.  The front tyres are still shit, they are still not a stagger. The cars are super twitchy to drive and it always wants to go up on two wheels’.  The Season #4 Champion continued, ‘A 2nd is good but I don’t think anyone is racing the track, they are just trying not to crash’.

Honigl was happy with his P3 saying, ‘I knew there was going to be a lot crashes so I just tried to get my head down and make no mistakes.  When I got into my rhythm I was able to push and still with no mistakes so I’m really happy’.  Asked about the switch from 2WD to 4WD, he said, ‘My car (4WD) is really easy to drive. I set it up to be easy instead of fast in practice’.

Posting the fourth fastest time, Honigl’s team-mate Martin Bayer described his XB4 as ‘edgy’ adding ‘sometimes it was on two wheels’.  Fresh from finishing on the podium in 2WD, he said, ‘I saw others making mistakes so I drove slow and made no mistakes’.  On his car he said while it was ‘quick in the corners’ it was ‘too difficult to drive’ and he will make changes for Q2 to make it easier.  Behind Bayer, young team-mate and Round 1 podium finisher Daniel Kobbevik would post the 5th fastest time.

Completing the Top 6, Joern Neumann described his run as ‘OK’.  The new Schumacher signing said, ‘I need to get used to 4WD again.  2WD you can push hard but in 4WD you have to be careful because you have so much steering’.  He added, ‘I was good towards the end (of the heat) so the next one should be better’.

View complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.