Coelho takes close Q2 from Pietsch & Rheinard
Bruno Coelho has made it two out of two in qualifying at the season finale of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Germany but unlike last night’s opening qualifier the Xray driver didn’t have it all his own way. Initially it was Marc Rheinard who laid down the TQ pace with Loic Jasmin taking the challenge to him. With Ronald Volker suffering a spin and pulling off to save tyres, his car having ‘too much steering’, Jasmin would put Yokomo at the top of the timing screens briefly before Rheinard took it back as Coelho joined the mix. In the end Coelho would take it on the timing screens from Rheinard but an impressive run from Pietsch in the heat before would put the Mugen driver second fastest, the separation just 0.086 of a second with Rheinard just 2/10ths off. Viljami Kutvonen would be the only other driver to run 21-laps in the hotter conditions to give him a P4.
‘Unlike what they said yesterday our car works well in all conditions’, was Coelho reaction after TQ, his comment a reference to Rheinard saying after Q1 the ETS Champion didn’t have as good a car for hot conditions. He continued, ‘these conditions are very hard for the tyres. I heard the drivers from the heat before saying it was super difficult so I did not start too aggressive and just got a feel for the conditions and adjusted my driving so as not to over heat the tyres. It worked very good and now I have two first places’.
Receiving high fives from everyone for his impressive performance nitro racer Pietsch said, ‘I was super scared about the weather. The car was good in the cold but when the sun came out it was horrible but I made changed the set-up for this morning and it was exactly what was needed for the heat’. With the ETS marking the international race debut for the Mugen’s first EP Touring car creation, the former 1:8 Onroad World Champion said, ‘I’m super happy with the result. I knew the car was working well because we did a lot of testing but didn’t expect myself to be so competitive’. Only his second electric outdoor race the MTC-1’s designer said, ‘My goal was the Top 20 but now I think more is possible if I stay can calm and stay on the track’.
Rheinard said, ‘I lost it on the last 2 or 3 laps’. He continued, ‘Between 1 and 2 minutes in I had a bad power slide to the left because I overheat the tyres to much so then I tried to be careful in the left turns but at the end the car was loose so I was happy to finish’. He added, ‘Yesterday Bruno had 3-seconds but today it was close and I think it will get even closer in the next one, even with him having a body advantage for this track’.
‘At least I now have a result’ was how Kutvonen summed up his P4. The Awesomatix driver added he had been on for an equally good result in Q1 until a tyre broke on his second last lap. Running in the second fastest heat, the Finn said, ‘after controlled practice we changed some small details in the set-up and this helped improve the car. I haven’t changed it between qualifiers and in the heat it is ok’. Reporting like many drivers his car sliding to the left, he feels this is something in the car rather than the heat and will check over his A800X for Q3. Apart from that he said he hopes he can get a clean run in, having made contact with VBC Racing’s Yannic Prumper in Q2, ‘I thought he was letting me throw but closed on me and we touched’. While it cost Kutvonen almost a second in time, for Prumper it ended his run as he got stuck out on the grass.
Commenting on his P5 run Jasmin said, ‘I was expecting less traction. In the beginning it was OK but then the tyres overheated a bit and the nerves came but I think I led for 1-lap’. The Frenchman continued, ‘after that I tried to relax and finish the run because I knew it would be good if I could keep safe to the end’. On his Yokomo BD8 he said, ‘I didn’t change the diff from Q1 but I think now it is hotter it would have been better to change and I will do it for the next one’.
‘Sixth again, I threw away 5th on the last lap’, was Christopher Krapp’s reaction to another P6 run. The Yokomo driver continued, ‘I knew if I could keep it on the track it would be fine because I knew from the Warm-up Race that conditions were going to be tricky with the heat’. A former ETS race winner he said, ‘the car got loose at the end and I nearly lost it so I will try to improve it for the next one. I will make a change to the rear to make it more consistent over the run’. Behind Krapp, fellow ETS race winner Alexander Hagberg would get a P7 having had a DNF in Q1.
In Pro Stock, championship contender Olivier Bultynck’s Q1 strategy to pull up and save tyres paid dividends as he TQ’d ahead of top seed Tobias Vogel and title challenger Alexandre Duchet. In Formula, Serpent’s Tim Benson took Q2 ahead of Infinity’s Jitse Miedema and the Xray of Matej Dobnikar. For the title contenders it was a troublesome qualifier with Championship leader David Ehrbar, 2nd placed Jan Ratheisky and 3rd placed Olivier Bultynck all having DNFs.
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