Collari secures TQ for ENS title decider

Lamberto Collari is Top Qualifier for the title decider of the Euro Nitro Series with championship protagonists Robert Pietsch and Simon Kurzbuch set to line up directly behind the 9-time World Champion for the 45-minute Fiorano encounter.  Going into the fifth & final round of qualifying with the exact same results as Pietsch, Collari would get the better of the German by just 0.225 seconds to secure his third TQ run of the day and with it pole position.  Missing out on the championship bonus point on offer for the TQ, Pietsch will start the season finale from 2nd on the grid with Kurzbuch set to carry the number 3.

Changing his MRX-5 set-up slightly for the TQ showdown, Collari said he was not sure this improved the car but it was good and he was pleased to be able to take the overall TQ.  Liking to allow himself a 10% margin in his driving he said for the first 2-minute he drove at 90% but for the second half he pushed hard.  On the penultimate lap he would become the first driver of the weekend to do a 14-second lap of the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter track.  Predicting a two stop tyre strategy, the Italian who is famed for his race strategies, said in terms of fuel stops he doesn’t plan to take any risks as using a fuel gun its hard to be sure the tank is completely full each time.  In terms of set-up he said while the car is very close to perfect for a final he is always looking to get more from it and during the full rebuild they will look at possible changes.

Describing his car in the last qualifier as ‘super good’, Pietsch said the run was great until he came up on Shepherd’s Oliver Mack.  Pietsch said with everyone so close, opening up for a faster car was costly and with Mack in a battle of his own to secure a direct spot in the Main he knew he could really afford to open up.  A good friend of Mack, Pietsch said he was actually more comfortable starting second as its easier to follow than to lead adding that when he started second in Valencia last year he won the European Championships where as this year in Austria he finished 3rd having started on pole. Feeling he will need only one tyre stop the ENS Round 3 winner, Kurzbuch having beaten him to the TQ in Germany, said in terms of fuel mileage he thinks his Picco is very good.

Kurzbuch said he was happy with third having been consistent throughout the qualifiers.  The 22-year-old said while over 4-minutes he was an average of 1-second off the Top 2 he doesn’t believe they can continue to run such a pace in the final.  Due to the track’s low tyre wear, the Swiss factory Shepherd driver thinks strategy will not play a huge part in the race.  Asked about the run time of his Novarossi engine he said they will analyse that in the final practice and work out their race tactics from there but he thinks based on qualifying that he should be ok.

Describing the battle at the front as being ‘almost like a World Championship’, Alberto Picco said the pace of the Top 3 makes it very difficult to compete for a podium unless you have a car that is 100% perfect.  Set to start fourth, he said while they have been improving his Mugen each run, the way they are doing this is different to how they used to normally do it having discovered that their old way was resulting in the car doing the opposite to what they thought the changes would do.  If they can find some more in the car he said then they should he should be able ‘to play his game’ in the final.

Having set himself the target of making it into the Main, Andrea Pirani said securing 5th on the grid was ‘very good’.  Running an OS engine, the WRC team driver said he hoped to use the Japanese engine’s good fuel consumption to his advantage in the final.  Like Collari, the Italian feels maybe two tyre stops will be required. In terms of his GTX chassis set-up he said it ‘is more or less there’ with maybe just some small adjustment required to take into account the tyre wear of the longer race.

With 20-year-old Andrea Lorenzi completing the Top half of the grid having qualified his Shepherd 6th, Daniele Ielasi starts 7th.  The BMT driver said for the final qualifier his car was slow and he doesn’t know why.  Part of another championship battle, this one for 3rd overall, with Pirani and Oliver Mack, with the final due to be run at a similar time to that of last qualifier when his RB powered 984 became super stable in the rear, inducing understeer, he said he needs to find a better set-up.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.