Pietsch takes second ENS Hockenheim qualifier

Robert Pietsch topped the second round of qualifying at Round 3 of the Euro Nitro Series this morning in Germany.  The Mugen driver would set a new fastest time at the Hockenheimring with BMT’s Daniele Ielasi, who crashed out of Q1, posting the second quickest time just 7/10th of a second adrift at the end of the 4-minutes.  Last night’s Q1 pace setter Simon Kurzbuch completed the Top 3 with his Shepherd followed by team-mates Lars Hoppe and Italy’s Andrea Lorenzi.

Second fastest in Q1 after traffic issues, Pietsch was happy with his TQ run saying he just tried to get a clean run due to the weather looking very much like the possibility of some rain.   Describing track conditions as similar to yesterday he said the big difference was with the engines which today are able to run much better due to the cooler conditions.  Suffering one ‘small mistake’, he said overall it was a great start to the day for the Mugen team with Ronald Volker TQ’ing the second of the 200mm qualifiers.  Looking to get his Picco powered MRX-5 to rotate better on the left hand corner after the chicane following the main straight he said he will either add more toe-in to the rear of the car or go for a different front spring.

Ielasi was happy with his run adding that he should have also been second in Q1 until a mistake put him out.  The Italian said finding at set-up for the large flat track is ‘not so easy’ but overall everything with his RB engined 984 was ‘ok’.  For Q3, the former 200mm World Champion will switch to a lighter rear rollbar in the hope that this will improve the car’s rear traction.

‘Quite OK’ was how Kurzbuch summed up his run but the championship points leader came close to a second TQ run.  A miscommunication between the Swiss driver and his mechanic lead to a 20 second last lap. Running the qualifier on a brand new unscrubbed set of the Enneti hand out tyres, he said he was surprised at how well they worked adding that the warm-up time was enough to bed them in for a good qualifier.  Planning on no changes to his Novarossi powered Velox V8, he said the only decision he needed to make was whether to continue with the same set of tyres or go for new ones, a call he would make once he calculated the level of tyre wear.

Hoppe described his run as a save A-Main run but said at the beginning it was not very good.  With his Sonic powered Shepherd not feeling as good as yesterday he said he maybe didn’t adapt his driving enough resulting in him over driving the car.  By the end of the run he said everything came together.  The only change the German plans for Q3 is to raise the gurney flap on his Blitz bodyshell.

Having suffered a rear belt problem on his OS Speed equipped Velox V8 in Q1, 20-year-old Lorenzi was able to run an untroubled Q2 to claim 5th.  Struggling with understeer for much of yesterday’s practice, a switch to a thinner front sway bar improved the car for Q1 which they were further able to improve for today by going to softer front shock oil.  Now with good steering he plans to run the car as is for Q3.

Having been officially classified well down the order and already starting to strip down his car for a major set-up change, a correction would see Serpent’s Michael Salven end up 6th fastest.  Running in the second heat, WRC’s Andrea Pirani would start too early starting the 4-minutes and leaving Salven who at the time was still in the pitlane with a very long first lap. On being notified of the correction the 977’s designer was left to rebuild the car back to the set-up he had just run which is what he started out the event with.  Looking to improve on that, including fitting the car with an all carbon chassis plate, he said he has ultimately ended up returning to his standard set-up.

Posting the fastest lap of the round, Mugen’s Rick Vrielijnck said reverting back to his timed practice set-up worked well until he made a ‘stupid mistake’ that left him 7th.  Six laps into the qualifier the Dutch Champion would catch the dots through the chicane after the straight resulting in a crash that would cost him close on 6-seconds. Very happy with his car he will leave it the same for Q3.

View the complete results here.

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