Coelho takes opening qualifier
Despite getting quite out of shape on his third lap, Bruno Coelho has taken the opening round of qualifying at Round 2 of the Euro Touring Series in Germany. The Xray driver would recover to be the only one to make 19-laps, topping the times from top seed Ronald Volker who would have to open up to let his rival through. Behind, Alexander Hagberg would put in a strong second half to the 5-minute qualifier to complete the Top 3 ahead of Marc Rheinard. Making it a good start to the weekend in Daun for Xray, Marc Kaufmann took his example to the fifth fastest time ahead of a quick, but making too many mistakes, Yannic Prümper.
Summing up his TQ run, Coelho said, ‘I was lucky to stay in the race. I lost the rear at the end of the straight and touched the board. Luckily it was only a little touch so I could keep going. The car then got better and better and I forced a lot to catch Volker.’ The reigning champion explained, ‘the car is really good for 5-minutes but only in the beginning is not so good the first 4 or 5 laps its a little difficult but then its really good. We will play with the additive for tomorrow to get it better for the start of the run. The car is really good so we don’t need to change that’.
Leading away the opening heat, Volker said, ‘It started off good but then the car started to develop understeer more and more and I was not able to stay on top. I will make a set-up change to get more steering for Q2. I want the car a little more difficult to drive’. With many drivers suffering errors, the Yokomo driver said he had a clean run but added, ‘I had to open for Bruno and that lost me some time’.
Hagberg described his qualifier as ‘pretty good’. The Swede said, ‘It was a good clean run but the car took some time to come in but by the end it was very good’. Confident the car is up to the job, he will focus on tyres for tomorrow’s second qualifier saying ‘we need to work on the additive timing and then I think we will have a good car for all the 5-minutes’.
‘Not too good’ was how Rheinard summed up his P4. The Infinity driver continued, ‘like I said before I have no steering and no corner speed. It didn’t help that I also had 1 or 2 mistakes and lost a second but the main problem is the car is still too slow’. Asked what changes he might make to improve the car for Q2, he said, ‘maybe I will try a harder diff and also maybe a body mount more forward’.
‘My goal is to make the A-Main and this is good first step to that’, said a very happy Kaufmann on setting the fifth fastest time. Enjoying his best ever ETS qualifying at the season opener when he lined up 3rd for the Austrian round, the German said his car had ‘a bit of understeer’ but felt that was to his advantage. ‘I think maybe this was better because this is super difficult track and my car was easy to drive so I had no mistakes’.
Prumper said, ‘my car was quite good but I had too many mistakes’. He continued, ‘On the second lap I hit the barrier at the end of the straight and over the run lost about 6-seconds in mistakes. I think without this I would have been similar pace to Bruno’. He concluded, ‘the car is super good over 5-minutes, I just need to make no mistakes tomorrow’. Behind Prumper, Serpent’s Viktor Wilck topped the second fastest heat to get a P7 for the round.
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