Raiola & Krägefski progress to A-Main

Carmine Raiola and Tom Krägefski will progress to the 1:10 A-Main at Round 3 of the Euro Nitro Series in Austria after claiming a straight forward 1-2 in the B-Main.  Starting 1 and 2 on the grid for the 20-minute encounter, they started as they finished with really only Gerhard Kandelhart mounting any serious kind of challenge until the Shepherd driver hit problems at the 2/3 distance.  In the end Björn Moser would complete the Top 3 finishing over 6-seconds off a bump up position.

Missing out on directly qualifying for the 45-minute A-Main, Raiola said he didn’t have issues in qualifying but as this is his first visit to Aigen he ‘needed more time to find a set-up for this unique track’.  A finalist at last month’s World Championship on the debut of Team Infinity’s prototype nitro touring car, the 25-year-old will be the third Infinity on the grid joining Top Qualifier Teemu Leino and fourth place starter Francesco Tironi making it a good ENS debut for the Singapore manufacturer.  Asked about the pending final the Italian plans to ‘try something different again’ with the car set-up but put the potential for a good result down to ‘planning a good tyre strategy’, the track having high wear.

Having also bumped up from the B-Main at the previous round in Ettlingen, Krägefski said, ‘it was not my decision to do it the hard way’.  The Xray driver, who joins Leo Arnold and Nicola Marrone on the 12 car A-Main grid, said engine problems where the reason for finding himself in the B-Main.  In Q2 he ‘destroyed’ his good engine and with its replacement couldn’t get it tuned round over Q3, 4 and 5.  Finally getting the engine set right in free practice this morning, the German said ‘he was hanging onto Riaola but didn’t want to pass’.  Not sure of tyre wear he said once Kandelhart went out he was ‘off the throttle to save tyres and make a safe finish’.   Setting the fastest lap of the final, he said with his ‘pace much better than yesterday the plan for the final is to push maximum’ adding coming up with a good tyre strategy was going to be important.

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