Coelho’s form continues in first controlled practice
Having headed an Xray 1-2 in free practice, Bruno Coelho carried his form into controlled practice as he again set the fastest 3-consecutive lap time in the first of the two rounds. With team-mate Alexander Hagberg posting only the 10th fastest time, it was HB’s Andy Moore who was closest to Coelho’s pace with Michal Orlowski a surprise 3rd. For defending champion Ronald Volker, a driver renowed for being the benchmark pace setter in practice, he would only end up 14th fastest, two place behind arch rival Marc Rheinard.
Moving the rear arm position on his LRP powered T4 for the 4-minute run, Coelho said this gave him more traction and better mid corner steering on the low traction asphalt. Happy with the improvement made, the World Championship runner-up plans to only check over the car opting to leave the set-up unchanged. For team-mate Hagberg a combination of a set-up change and running new tyres left him with a car that was ‘not good’. He will revert back to his previous set-up and fit the car with a different set of used tyres for his run.
Having made some small adjustments to his PRO 5, Moore said his pace comes in after 2-minutes with the balance of the car not quite right at the beginning of the run. He said he is not sure if it’s his tyre prep or whether he needs to change the set-up to get the car to work the tyres more at the start. While he feels he doesn’t need to change the set-up as the ‘car is ok to drive’, he said looking at how Coelho is consistently quick he will make some small changes to try and reduce the deficit.
Orlowski was ‘very happy’ with his pace, the Schumachers running well here as team-mate Elliot Harper posted the 5th fastest time. The young Polish driver said they did a lot of work with the Mi5 in practice yesterday and it’s paying off now. Looking for more steering he will fit a rear brace to the car to get better rotation.
Harper was happy with the progress he has made since arriving in Austria, saying the team have been working really well together to get to where they are now. With ‘understeer, you’re probably hearing that from everyone’, his only issue the British driver said it’s now really down to him to put in clean runs in qualifying. Crashing heavily in the last practice he said it didn’t seem to affect the car as his fastest 3-laps came afterwards.
Serpent’s Marc Fischer would post the 4th fastest time. A track where the German went well last year, he said arriving with the set-up he used 12-months ago they have pretty much changed everything on the car twice to get it to work in the ‘not so easy traction condition’. Team-mate Viktor Wilck would complete the Top 6, the Swede echoing Fischer’s comments but encouraged that they have now found a good direction with the set-up.
Volker, who TQ’d and won this event when it made its first visit to Mattsee last year, said his pace reflected the fact he was running in new tyres but declared all would be fine for CP2. The German said he expected to be slightly off pace due to using the run for scrubbing tyres but said it is not normal for old tyres to be faster than new ones. Team-mate Prumper, like Volker and Hagberg was on new tyres and would post only the 8th fastest time but said despite that his BD7 was better following set-up changes made after free practice.
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