Pietsch & Dankel Top Qualifiers at ENS
Robert Pietsch and Eric Dankel are the Top Qualifiers for the first ever Euro Nitro Series Race, the German duo set to lead away the 12 car A-Main grids later this evening at the Hockenheimring in Germany. While Dankel put pole position for the 45-minute 1:10 Touring final beyond the reach of his rivals in last night’s penultimate qualifier, the number 1 starting position for the 1:8 A-Main was still to play for in this morning’s fifth & final qualifier between Pietsch and Mark Green. In the end despite failing to finish Q5 it was Mugen driver Pietsch who took the honour on tie break thanks to him having a faster TQ run than that of Green, although in the final qualifier Green did post his fastest run of the weekend when he took 2nd behind Serpent team-mate Salven. Having ran a TQ pace in nearly every qualifier Salven was finally able to keep the run clean to claim TQ for the round doing so with the fastest 4-minute run of the event.
Winning the European Nitro Challenge here last year from pole position Pietsch said his Mugen is working well and he will run the same set-up for the final but the World Champion’s main concern is engines. Suffering a broken plug in the final qualifier he said he will have to run a new engine in the final which is a gamble but having suffered a conrod failure in yesterday’s third qualifier his choice of alternatives is limited.
Delighted to finally hold it together and produce a TQ run, Salven said they got caught out by the points system and if he had understood the tie break correctly he would have let Green take the round. While nitro onroad traditionally use the fastest single round to determine the TQ, which woud have seen Salven on pole position, the ENS uses the points system more commonly used in electric touring cars. Believing that Green just needed to finish ahead of Pietsch to secure the TQ honours they hadn’t taken into account the tie break rule which only takes into account the fastest time of your best scoring rounds which in this case played into the hands of Pietsch. Other than the bragging rights in a 45-minute Main the grid positions mean little and starting from 3rd position Salven said his is looking forward to a good race. Happy with how well his 977 Viper has been performing throughout the weekend the car’s designer said he will run it exactly the same as he did in qualifiying for the the final.
Green is too very happy with how is Novarossi powered 977 is running and is confident for the final. The British ace said it is running super consistent and other than freshening it up and fitting new belts he will stick with the same set-up and just try and ‘keep it on track’. While the 11th and 12th starters have still yet to be decided from the lower double finals, currently Serpent makes up half the grid with Nicolai Bähr securing fifth on the grid directly in front of fellow 977 drivers Toni Gruber and Merlin Depta.
Top Shepherd in the final, this being the home race for the German team whose headquarters is less than 10km away, is Lars Hoppe. The German will start fourth on the grid and having had to drive conservative in qualifying after engine trouble in Q1 & 2 left him with two DNFs, he says he can now drive ‘maximium attack’ in the final adding that he is very comfortable with how is his Velox V8 is handling. Joining Hoppe in the Main event will be Maximilian Vogl who starts 8th and Alexander Thilo who starts ninth. Tobias Hepp who had a troubled final qualifier secures the last direct qualifying position ensuring at least one Xray in the final.
Top Qualifier here last year but suffering a flame out while in a commanding lead of the race, Dankel notched up his fourth TQ run in Q5 but the Capricorn driver said it was a lucky one as Wischnewski was faster until his mistake. Changing the plug in his Novarossi engine which Dankel said he was able to get a better tune but this resulted in his gearbox setting being off. Changing up to late it made it hard to drive but with this rectified for the Main, he believes he has a very competitive car for the final. Asked about tyres wear he said his CO-2 appears is not hard on the handout Ennetti tyre and his thinks running the full distance on 1-set such be no problem.
Starting second on the grid, Wischnewski, despite pushing too hard in Q5 resulting in a mistake that dropped him to 5th on the time sheets, was much happier with his Xray today. Having struggled to get a good balance yesterday, the former European Champion said he had improved the set-up of his NT1 a lot today. Describing the final as a totally ‘different game now’, the German who took the win here last year when the race was known as the European Nitro Challenge appears to be well up for a battle with Dankel this evening.
Second fastest in the final two qualifiers, Shepherd designer Patrick Schafer will start third in the final. Having failed to start Q3 after he lost a belt off his new Velox V10 Pro in the warm-up, he said since fitting a new side belt the cars has been transformed and he suspects the belt he lost in Q3 could have been slipping in the opening two qualifiers. A winner here two years ago, Schafer described his car as now ‘very easy to drive’ and good in terms of tyre wear, although it does need to be rebuilt after he fired it across the finish line and hit the pit wall in an attempt to try snatch the TQ for Q5 from Dankel. Starting directly behind Schafer will be his team drivers Freddy Sudhoff who suffered a glowplug failure in Q5 and 2011 Euro B Champion Patrick Nahr.
Reigning French National Basile Concialdi pulled off a strong final qualifier setting the third fastest time to secure 9th on the grid joining fellow countryman Michael Derderian who will start 8th. Basile said having struggle a little with his car he found a good set-up in Q4 but a roll cost him a good run. Finally with a good car and a clean round he was able to post a competitive time. Planning to change the set-up of his Orion powered CO-2 for the final he said his main aim is to make the car more flexible and he will cut the radio tray to achieve this. Just 1/10th off Basile in Q5 was Jakub Rozycki but unfortunately the result was too late for the Polish driver who ended up qualifying 11th. Driving a Capricorn powered Kyosho, Q5 was the 16-year-old’s first clean run and should he be able to repeat that form in his two B-Main finals he could still make the main event, the two drivers will the fastest race times from any of the lower finals getting bumped up to the back of the A-Main grid.
1:8 A-Main Grid
1. Robert Pietsch – Mugen/Novarossi – 463 pts
2. Mark Green – Serpent/Novarossi – 463
3. Michael Salven – Serpent/Xceed – 460
4. Lars Hoppe – Shepherd/Sonic – 455
5. Nicolai Bähr – Serpent/Sonic – 454
6. Toni Gruber – Serpent/Xceed – 450
7. Merlin Depta – Serpent/Xceed – 449
8. Maximilian Vogl – Shepherd/Sonic – 446
9. Alexander Thilo – Shepherd/Sonic – 446
10.Tobias Hepp – Xray/Novarossi – 445
1:8 Qualifying Round 5
1. Michael Salven – Serpent/Xceed – 14/4:11.935
2. Mark Green – Serpent/Novarossi – 14/4:12.989
3. Lars Hoppe – Shepherd/Sonic – 14/4:14.790
4. Toni Gruber – Serpent/Xceed – 14/4:15.257
5. Maximilian Vogl – Shepherd/Sonic – 14/4:17.166
6. Alexander Thilo – Shepherd/Sonic – 14/4:17.329
7. Merlin Depta – Serpent/Xceed – 13/4:00.732
8. Nicolai Bähr – Serpent/Sonic – 13/4:01.472
9. Timo Schroder – Serpent/Sonic – 13/4:03.135
10.Joey Sorber – Shepherd/Sonic – 13/4:04.505
1:10 Touring A-Main Grid
1. Eric Dankel – Capricorn/Novarossi – 456 pts
2. Dirk Wischnewski – Xray/Novarossi – 461
3. Patrick Schafer – Shepherd/Sonic – 457
4. Freddy Sudhoff – Shepherd/LRP – 457
5. Patrick Nahr – Shepherd/Sonic – 450
6. Pedro Rombouts – Xray/Orcan – 450
7. Tom Kragefski – Serpent/OS – 450
8. Michael Derderian – Xray/G-Mar – 449
9. Concialdi Basile – Capricorn/Orion – 445
10.Sebastian Burge – Shepherd/Sonic – 441
1:10 Qualifying Round 5
1. Eric Dankel – Capricorn/Novarossi – 12/4:06.187
2. Patrick Schafer – Shepherd/Sonic – 12/4:07.057
3. Concialdi Basile – Capricorn/Orion – 12/4:08.317
4. Jakub Rozycki – Kyosho/Capricorn – 12/4:08.450
5. Dirk Wischnewski – Xray/Novarossi – 12/4:08.497
6. Michael Derderian – Xray/G-Mar – 12/4:09.126
7. Patrick Nahr – Shepherd/Sonic – 12/4:09.879
8. Aurelien Rivard – Xray/RB – 12/4:12.965
9. Tom Kragefski – Serpent/OS – 12/4:13.152
10.Daniel Toennessen – Mugen/RB – 12/4:14.260
View complete results here.
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