Dankel sets early pace at ENS finale

Mugen’s Erik Dankel set the early pace in a shortened practice ahead of the title deciding season finale of the Euro Nitro Series in Fiorano, Italy.  The former Champion, who is one of the key contenders for the 1:10 title, was fastest over 3-consecutive laps of the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter track from World Champion Dominic Greiner with reigning ENS Champion Jilles Groskamp completing the Top 3.  With the first round of practice being sat out by most of the top drivers due to rain yesterday & overnight rain meaning drivers arrived to a wet track, title favourite Teemu Leino’s single practice would see the Team Infinity driver go only 7th fastest on the mainly dry track.

‘I didn’t expect it, it went really well’, was Dankel’s reaction to being quickest by 7/10th from Greiner.  The German, who comes into the weekend 2nd in the points behind fellow countryman Dirk Wischnewski, continued, ‘Its a really positive start that my car worked straight away because if I struggle at the start of an event it can get into my head sometimes’.   Feeling his ‘lines are not perfect’ around the track he added ‘I need to get more used to the track’ – originally drivers where scheduled to get six rounds of free practice yesterday but rain prevented any dry running.  Expecting ‘its going to be close like every time’ once qualifying gets underway, the first round on schedule for later this evening, he said in terms of his car he will leave it unchanged for the final practice as he expects the track to get better but not knowing how it will be ‘no point to change anything for now’.

One of the few drivers to test in the wet yesterday, Greiner said he had ‘a strange feeling’ from his car in the second practice.  The Serpent driver said his 748 was ‘loose on power’ and while expecting the track conditions to get better which should help alleviate this added he will still need to make changes to his car. With Matrix the handout tyre for this race he said the characteristic of the tyre is to give the car more steering and he needs to change his set-up to account for this.  Team-mate and winner of this event last year, Alessio Mazzeo would take his 748 to the fifth fastest time behind Eduardo Escandon, the Spanish KM Racing driver having had a good showing here last year when he qualified 6th.

‘Felt really good from the start’ was how a very pleased looking Groskamp summed up his car.  The Team Infinity driver, who missed the 3rd round of the ENS due to EP World Championship commitments, said, ‘I’m running the same set-up as Gubbio (World Championships) and the balance and the steering are good’.  Having ran at the Bologna track, host of the season opener, in the lead up to the race to break in engines for the weekend the Dutch driver added, ‘maybe we could have run my engine a little leaner but I’m happy’.  Admitting ‘Erik is really fast’, he continued ‘the track will of course improve and I know the track and really like how it flows so for a first run we are looking OK’.  In terms of car changes he said, ‘I wont be making many changes as we have little track time now after the rain so it will be just little adjustments we might try’.

Almost 1.4-seconds off Dankel’s pace, Leino summed up his practice run as ‘not so good’.  The Finn, who has won the last two rounds, said ‘the car feels twitchy’.  Feeling it is a combination of the track conditions, some moisture still in the track, and his set-up he said ‘we will change (the set-up) a little bit for the next one’.  Also planning to change engine, saying ‘I need to have two ready for the race’, he concluded, ‘It is a little difficult with not so much practice’.  For Leino’s key title rival and the season’s only other race winner Wischnewski the first practice would see the Team Shepherd driver somewhat off the pace with only the 13th fastest time just behind Xray’s lead driver Bruno Coelho.

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