Dankel takes Euro Nitro Series win in Melzo

Eric Dankel has won the opening round of the all new Euro Nitro Series which kicked off at Melzo in Italy at the weekend, the Capricorn coming out top of the ultra competitive field to win which saw the Top 4 all finishing on the same lap at the end of the 45-minute encounter.  An emotional win for Dankel, starting from 4th on the grid the German 200mm ace would recover from a bad start to win from local hero Francesco Tironi by 12-seconds with Dirk Wischnewski just holding off Top Qualifier Teemu Leino to complete the podium at the Mini Racing Ayrton Senna track.

Clearly pleased with his win, the start couldn’t have been worse as his Capricorn ended up in a crash losing him almost 5-seconds.  Driving back onto the track he said his biggest concern was rejoining the asphalt would damage his tyres but he said luckily that would not be the case.  Rejoining in 12th he said he had no choice but to push hard to recover the lost time but with his car very easy to drive he said he was able to run very consistent laps moving to the front on lap 75, thanks to a faster tyre stop than fellow country Wischnewski who had led for the previous 12-laps. Praising the speed of his pit crew he said the tyre stop was great.  Having suffered at the second of last year’s ENS Pilot Races in Austria when he tried to run one extra stop on his tyres, he said the plan for the race today was to stop on 20-minutes for a fresh set of the Matrix tyres.  However with the Maxima powered car still working really good at the 20-minute mark he made the call to go 5-more minutes.   Following the fast stop, his crew taking 2-seconds out of Wischnewski, he said the car was better on the second set of tyres and he was very comfortable for the remainder of the race.  A ‘perfect start’ to the new championship, Dankel said even though he has never been to the track before he is already looking forward to Round 2 at Aigen in Austria next month.

Holding the lead as the first round of stops started and being the first driver to stop, Tironi would get collected by Dario Balestri who got airborne on his entry to the raised pitlane.  The contact would cost the World Championship podium finisher over 10-seconds dropping him back to 7th.  Apart from this the popular character said the rest was ‘maybe a perfect race’ and considering the lost time and how close the field was throughout the weekend he is happy with second.  Also racing in 1:8 this weekend, that final being a struggle for him, he said for Round 2 he would just focus on one class.

Qualifying 7th for his debut race with Team Shepherd, Wischnewski said his start was perfect as he completed the first lap in 3rd position.  Moving to the front at the first round of fuel stops, said he was pleased with how the race was going up until his ‘solid tyre stop’.  Admitting it wasn’t as fast as Dankel’s, the former European Champion said after the change his car was really difficult to drive.  For the first two laps after the stop he said it was ‘terrible’ leading him to go off the track.   With the car getting worse, afterwards it was found that his Orcan powered Velox V10 had a broken rear diff.  Holding second until contact with team-mate Tironi he said it was just a racing incident and even with the resulting off he said he just wouldn’t have had the pace to keep the ‘much faster’ No. 3 car behind him.  Saying they have some work to do for the next race he said overall he was pleased to secure a podium on his debut with his new team.

Making his return to 1:10 nitro onroad this weekend having not raced since the 2012 World Championship, Leino was very disappointed to finish fourth having got to within .015 of Wischnewski at the finish line.  Showing very impressive pace in qualifying to secure the overall TQ honours, the Finn led for the first 9-laps before an off, but a flame out on his first pit stop would lose him contact with the leaders.  The Worlds Top Qualifier would also have a troubled tyre stop that was some 16 seconds slower than that of Dankel.   Leino said the speed was there but unfortunately everything just didn’t come together but he is determined to rectify things at Round 2.  New HB team-mate Adrien Bertin who started the final 8th would be the first retirement of the race, a broken fuel tank lid causing him engine problems and he went out at six & a half minutes.

Before the race had even start there was drama as Capricorn’s Dario Balestri suffered engine problems in the warm-up.  Calling a 10-minute delay his team managed to change out the engine.  Unfortunately having changed the gearing on both the car and the clutch bell, having discovered after qualifying it was too short a ratio, the spare engine was fitted with the old gearing.  Forced to start from the back of the grid for delaying the original start, despite the wrong gearing the rapid Italian was still able to work his way back up to second only to lose it with his collision with Tironi in the pitlane.  After that he said it was impossible to recover and he would finish 5th over a lap behind Dankel.

The Top 6 was completed by Xray’s European B Champion Luca Redaelli with Dominic Greiner the top Serpent in 7th.  Starting from fifth, the German was running in a Top 3 position until his Picco powered 747 got airborne on the pit entry, causing the front end to get caught between two panels of the raised pitlane, the damage taking over a minute to fix.   With the ‘car, engine, driver all good’ he was very disappointed to lose out to such an incident.

1:10 200mm A-Main Result
1.(4) Eric Dankel (DE) – Capricorn/Maxima – 130/45:00.115
2.(3) Francesco Tironi (IT) – Shepherd/Novarossi – 130/45:12.456
3.(7) Dirk Wischnewski (DE) – Shepherd/Orcan – 130/45:17.731
4.(1) Teemu Leino (FI) – HB/Novarossi – 130/45:17.746
5.(2) Dario Balestri (IT) – Capricorn/XRD – 129/45:08.247
6.(6) Luca Redaelli (IT) – Xray/Picco – 128/45:07.879
7.(5) Dominic Greiner (DE) – Serpent/Picco – 127/45:11.897
8.(10)Alexander Thilo (DE) – Xray/Orcan – 126/45:00.876
9.(13)Patrick Schafer (DE) – Shepherd/Sonic – 122/45:16.278
10.(14)Rico Krober (DE) – Xray/Orcan – 120/45:03.059
11.(11)Basile Concialdi (FR) – Capricorn/Novarossi – 117/44:22.709
11.(9)Mark Green (GB) – Serpent/Novarossi – 110/41:27.019
12.(12)Martin Lissau (DK) – Shepherd/Reds Racing – 75/29:36.363
14.(8)Adrien Bertin (FR) – HB/Orion – 16/6:30.701

View the complete results here.

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