Coelho opens Day 2 of ENS with TQ run

Team Xray’s Bruno Coelho got Day 2 of the Euro Nitro Series season opener in Bologna, Italy, underway with a TQ run.  The third round of qualifying at the L.Collari RC Raceway, the Portuguese driver set a new fastest time as he outpaced Team Shepherd’s Dirk Wischnewski by 1.6-seconds with Serpent’s Dominic Greiner a further 3/10ths off in third.  For yesterday’s pace setters the morning run would see Teemu Leino, who took Q2, post the 5th fastest time with Q1 top qualifier Alessio Mazzeo completing the Top 6.

‘Super good, no mistakes’ was how Coelho summed up his run having had incidents in both qualifiers yesterday.  Running new tyres on his Max powered NT1 ’15 for each of his runs, he said other than double check the car set-up before the run the car is still as he ran it from the start of qualifying.  Happy with how everything is running, he said the plan is to ‘continue the same’.

Wischnewski said he had a ‘clean run’ but the German felt his Orcan engine was ‘maybe too rich’.  The former European Champion admitted he benefited from other guys having issues but overall the performance of the car was ‘fine’.  With ‘three ok rounds’ he plans to use the next qualifier to test a lighter front diff adding while not far off he could do with a little more steering from the Velox V10.

Having suffered an engine flame out in Q2, Greiner said ‘overall 3rd not bad’ but the World Championship Top Qualifier was annoyed by a mistake he made on his penultimate lap.  On a TQ pace he hit the curbing through the sweeper leading onto the straight losing over 2-seconds.  Happy with his 748 the German said he will make an engine change for Q4 as he looks for more power.

Setting the fastest lap of the qualifying in Q3 to post the fourth fastest time, Leo Arnold said the qualifier was ‘not so bad’.  The French Capricorn driver said his car was hard to drive yesterday as he had too much steering.  Also hampered by traffic in Q1 and then making a mistake in Q2, he said a harder front spring made the car easier to drive in Q3.  Happy with the car now he will run it unchanged for the fourth qualifier.

Top Qualifier at last season’s opening race and in contention again this year, HB’s Leino would suffer an early spin at the end of the straight that cost him 3-seconds.  Running the car the same as when he TQ’d Q2, he said today his R10 felt tweaked with him having to save it a few times as it broke loose. He will check over the car for Q4 to see if he can pin point the problem.

In the closing stages of the run while in the mix for a second TQ run, Mazzeo would suffer a broken gearbox on his Serpent.  Stuck in 2nd gear the 2013 European Champion would finish the run with three 17-second laps dropping him to 6th.  Very happy with his 748 up to that point, he said with a new gearbox fitted everything should be good for the next round.

For defending champion Eric Dankel it was a again a poor qualifier but this time the Capricorn driver took full responsibility.  Having had car issues yesterday, the German said today his car was really good.  Running in the same heat as Arnold, the second fastest group, he was on a TQ pace until the final lap when he made a mistake which he said was completely his own fault.  With his ‘car good now’ he said the ‘TQ pace is there’.

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