Orlowski tops Q1 in Warsaw

The opening round of 2wd qualifying at the 2nd round of the Euro Offroad Series in Warsaw, Poland is complete and it was local superstar Michal Orlowski who emerged quickest by some 5 seconds. The Schumacher driver headed the gaggle of former EOS champions, with Lee Martin in 2nd, Jorn Neumann in 3rd, young Norwegian Daniel Kobbevik in 4th, with Bruno Coelho completing the top 5. Speaking with Orlowski after the run he said ‘It was good, the car felt really good we didn’t change anything from practice. Obviously with new tires so the first couple of laps were edgy but then Lee had a small mistake in the first minute, Bruno crashed, so I just tried not to crash’.

Lee Martin, like 3 of the top 5 drivers had just returned from Australia where he attended the Nitro Offroad Worlds, put his Yokomo 2nd for the round. ‘It was ok, the tire felt like it had more grip, it wasn’t as free as in practice and I don’t know why’ said the British driver, continuing ‘I had one mistake, I could have driven faster but thought I would settle for second’. Feeling there is more in the car and tires he remarked ‘Once the tire beds in it’s better, I can get more speed out of myself as well. We can get there but I didn’t want to push everything in the first run and be like 8th and have pressure on me, 2nd is good to start.’

Jorn Nuemann was pleased with his opening qualifier, the Schumacher driver stating ‘The first round was good, not super fast lap times but consistent’. For the next round of qualifying the German said ‘I think we tune some things and get faster, with 2nd round tires it’s always better’.

Not really featuring in Controlled Practice and unusually far off the pace, Daniel Kobbevik came back in the opening qualifier to end up 4th from the 2nd fastest heat. Finding a fairly major issue with the car the Norwegian described the issue, saying ‘We had the pistons wrong in the car, I had one rear piston on the front and one front piston on the rear so it was a big difference’. Only having time to fix the front of the car before going out to qualify, he said ‘Now the car is better, I still had the wrong pistons in the rear. I hope it will be even better in the next run.’

Having a messy start to qualifying Bruno Coelho described his run saying ‘It was ok, I made many mistakes in the round, I think 3 and all I need a marshall so it takes a long time’. On his car he said ‘the car was working very good from the beginning until the end so I try to not do any mistakes next time’, drivers having all 4 of their qualifiers today, starting Saturday morning with finals before moving onto 4wd.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Track Focus – Warsaw Moto Show

Venue – Ptak Warsaw Expo
Race Hosts – ATA
Country – Poland
Location – Warsaw
Direction – Counter Clockwise
Surface – Carpet
No. of EOS Races hosted – 2

The EOS returns to Poland for round 2 of the 2018/19 series, the country and venue having hosted the season opener last year. The sixth time the country has hosted the EOS, last year it was run as part of the World Travel Show, while this year sees it once again back as part of the Warsaw Moto Show as in 2016. Held at the biggest Exhibition and Congress Centre in Central Europe, Ptak Warsaw Expo, which has a total exhibition space of 143,000 square meters, racing will again take place at the same hall B, but in a different part of the hall. As with the majority of races hosted in Poland, the race track has been designed and built by the local ATA crew, headed by Niko Triandafilidis. As a home race for Warsaw resident and current EOS Champion Michal Orowski, when asked to describe the track the Schumacher driver replied ‘it’s fun, not so difficult’. Really enjoying the central double-single, he followed up by commenting that a lot of time can be made in the five corner front chicane. Asked to pinpoint the track’s most challenging section he said ‘the entire section from the corner table top to the hairpin’, an part of the track that contains 2 angled rollers which lead up to the hairpin before the double single.

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