Kurzbuch wins but Balestri claims ENS title
Simon Kurzbuch won the fourth & final round of the Euro Nitro Series, but second behind the Shepherd driver in Italy was enough for Capricorn’s Dario Balestri to deny the season’s only double winner from retaining the title he won last year at the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter track. Starting second behind Top Qualifier Balestri, Kurzbuch would drive the ‘near perfect race’ coming out on top of a thrilling mid race battle between the two world class 1:8 drivers. Knowing even if Kurzbuch took the win Balestri would see out the 45-minute final in a controlled fashion finishing 5-seconds behind his Main title rival while the other title contender Robert Pietsch finished a distant 5th after an early incident with last year’s race winner Lamberto Collari. Starting from 12th on the grid having bumped up from the B-Main Alberto Picco would completed the race podium in Fiorano.
‘That was a very enjoyable race’ was Balestri’s reaction to a race that saw the pair rub body work and make contact twice. He continued ‘It was very competitive and I am happy to have battled like this with Simon, he is a very good driver’. Having shot into title contention with his first ENS win at the previous round in Germany and then making Kurzbuch’s quest to retain the title even harder by securing the bonus championship point for the TQ, he said his only problem in the final was tyres. The former Eurpean Champion said ‘we made something wrong with the set-up for the tyres’ holding up his worn out front tyres. He said ‘I am ok with arriving 2nd and I’m happy for Simon but this weekend is a huge boost for the World Championships as we should we have a really good package in Capricorn and my Tesla engines’.
Kurzbuch said apart from mistake early on it was a perfect race for him. Describing his Velox V8 and Novarossi engine as perfect he said the key moment of the race was his quick tyre stop which gave him ‘a few seconds on Balestri’. Sharing his Italian rivals views that it was it was ‘a really nice battle’ between them he said it was particularly ‘nice to win in Italy against drivers like Dario’. The only multiple race winner of the second season of the ENS from either classes, he said he was OK with 2nd in the championship highlighting his ‘two bad results’. Describing the event as the perfect warm-up before travelling to Brazil for the World Championships he said ‘the stuff is ready and I am really happy with the improvements we have made with the Mito 9C engine’.
Claiming his first ENS podium finish Picco said ‘I couldn’t have expected more when I look at how the weekend started’. Keeping the same set-up as he used to bump up from the B-Final, he said his Mugen again worked well but added he was ‘delayed by starting last on the grid’. Not an incident free race for the Picco engine boss, the Italian said he made a mistake during one of his pit stops in which he crashed into Collari, the Infinity driver suffering a flame out as a result. The crash would also brake a rear tyre on Picco’s car leaving him to run 10-minutes with it before his scheduled tyre stop. He would again find himself crashing with Collari, this time a problem with the 9-time World Champion’s car causing it to slow out of a corner and on full throttle Picco couldn’t avoid him. Damaging the body and front bumper he said he would lose some steering but he was able to drive around it, adding considering everything finishing on the podium was a ‘very good result’.
Finishing fourth having been in the mix for a podium finish, Daniele Ielasi described his race as ‘super’. Having to fuel every four minutes he said with 2 more stops than his rivals he was very happy that he could still run at the front, the gap to Picco at the end only 3.9-seconds. Braking his ‘race car’ in half in practice and having to race a standard version of the GTX, he said ‘I am super happy with the performance and let the others know I am here’ which he said was a huge physiological boost for the Worlds.
Debuting Mugen’s new MRX-6, Pietsch said he was ‘very happy’ with the new car adding that the event and racing against such a high level competition was hugely beneficial, if slightly risky. With the new car having different handling characteristics to the MRX-5, he said the set-ups it requires are also different but given that he had no proper testing prior to the ENS finale it was a positive first race. The former World Champion said he had a lot of understeer with his first set of tyres and he just tried to keep 3rd having got by Ielasi early on. Battling with Collari, contact would see Pietsch end up on his roof, the German saying with the lost time his ‘race was done’. With the incident damaging a tyre he said the car was then horrible until the stop. Much happier with the second set of tyres, he said he was able to set good lap times and run with Picco.
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