Another TQ run from Kurzbuch

Having opened qualifying at Round 2 of the ENS in Germany with a TQ run last night, Simon Kurzbuch got Day 2 of the event off to the perfect start as he again set the pace in Q2.  The second of the five qualifiers in Ettlingen was a repeat of the Q1 result with Dario Balestri again Kurzbuch’s closest challenger and Robert Pietsch completing the Top 3.   The surprise of the qualifier would be Oliver Mack, who running in the fourth fastest heat, would set the 4th fastest time just 0.026 off Pietsch.  Francesco Tironi would improve on his opening run post his first Top 6 run with fifth ahead of the Belgian Steven Cuypers.

‘A perfect run’ was how Kurzbuch referred to his run.  Making a front downstop change to his Novarossi powered Shepherd, the reigning ENS Champion said, ‘the car was very stable and easy to drive, I just had to lift once when a car came out of the grass but despite that it was perfect’.  Improving on his time by almost one and a half seconds and also improving his fastest lap, the Swiss ace said, ‘the lower temperatures are better for my car’.  Looking to Q3, when another TQ run would make him Top Qualifier for the second time this season, he said, ‘I don’t think I will change anything, I have one hand on the point (for TQ) so lets try bring it home’.

‘Simon was too fast.  Simply he is more fast than me at the moment’, was Balestri’s reaction after Q2.  The Infinity driver continued, ‘my car & engine are good so I’m still happy but we need to see what we can do’.  The only driver to TQ a round of the ENS last season apart from Kurzbuch, the 2015 ENS Champion said, the ‘hotter conditions are better for our car’ and with the sun already warming things up, today’s schedule having started earlier due to yesterday’s rain delays, he will be hoping to try take the fight to his arch rival.

Pietsch said, ‘again I was too nervous at the beginning but when I settled down my mind I was ok again’.  The Mugen driver said, the reason for being nervous this morning was because his nerves yesterday had led him to making mistakes in the first lap of Q1 and he was trying to make sure not to repeat that. Describing traction conditions as ‘a little different’ with the track having more traction, he plans to adjust the rear shock position for the next one.

‘Finally’ was Mack’s reaction to his P4, the popular German adding, ‘this is my track’.  Having tested for the event 2-weeks before he said ‘now its totally different’ and having worked on his Infinity to remove front grip based on the test that has led him to playing catch up.  Winner of the European Championships held at Ettlingen in 2015, Mack said he had the benefit of running earlier in the round and had cooler track conditions but an engine change for Q2 has improved his performance, the engine one he had loaned to a friend who is pitting next to him.

Tironi summed up his run as ‘ok’.  The Italian added, ‘from the first free practice my car feels ok and I have worked on improving my driving.  It is a long time since I am competitive and I am working to get that feeling back’.  He continued, ‘Dario, Simon and Robert are faster and it will be hard to get on their pace, for this time I am happy with where I am at and we will of course try to improve on this’.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Kurzbuch takes Q1 from Balestri

Simon Kurzbuch has TQ’d the opening round of 1:8 qualifying at Round 2 of the Euro Nitro Series in Germany.  With rain delaying the schedule, the reigning champion took what would turn out to be the day’s only qualifier from arch rival Dario Balestri, both drivers previous ENS race winner at the Minidrom Ettlingen track.  Behind them Robert Pietsch maintained the strong form he showed in the morning’s seeding practice as he set the 3rd fastest time to make it an all Champions affair Top 3.  Having topped seeding, Bruno Coelho would end up fourth with the ENS France winner taking the blame for less than perfect driving over the 4-minutes.

‘All the changes paid off, and we were there on the point’, was Kurzbuch’s reaction to taking the TQ in the first of the 5 qualifiers, the second round due to run today rescheduled into tomorrow’s timetable.  The Shepherd driver continued, ‘I made a very good start and pulled away but then had a little traffic with 2 cars and lost a little time there.  I knew it was going to be close at the end so I had to really push’.  Setting the fastest lap of Q1 on his last lap, the Swiss driver said the performance has him ‘happy for tomorrow’.

Not happy with his seeding performance, Balestri was much happier looking after Q1.  The Infinity driver said he went back to the set-up he arrived to the track with and just adjusting the rollbars for the grip levels ‘all was fine again’.  Winner on the ENS’ first visit to the track in 2015, the Italian continued, ‘it was a good run and it was good to fight with Simon but in my opinion we can improve the car for tomorrow, at least I hope’.  Also setting his fastest lap of the race on his final lap, being the only driver along with Kurzbuch to get down to 12-seconds, there was a sense from Balestri that is now game on for the rest of the weekend.

Pietsch was pleased with his P3 admitting to be ‘nervous at the beginning’ but happy ending the qualifier on the pace again. Once settled in to the run the Mugen driver said, ‘I could make time on Bruno and Dario but my last lap was a little slow and Dario passed me again’.  Pleased with the performance of his car which features some prototype parts he is testing for the World Championship later this year he plans to leave the car set-up unchanged for Q2.

‘Mistakes on my side’, was how Coelho replied when asked about how his first 1:8 qualifying attempt had gone.  The championship leader continued, ‘I had a number of slides because I over used the power.  The car and engine where all good it was just my mistakes that were the problem’.

Opening his event with the fifth fastest time ahead of Mirko Salemi, Lars Hoppe was pleased with his run.  New to the Shepherd team for the 2017 season, the German said his car was good but his Reds engine was ‘a little too lean especially at the end’.  Describing it as a very clean run, he said for tomorrow he would change nothing on the car except tweak his gearbox to change a little earlier and get a better tune on his engine.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Dankel again in Q2 at ENS Germany

It was a good first day at ENS Germany for Eric Dankel as the Mugen driver made it two out of two in the second round of qualifying at Minidrom Ettlingen. Having led a Mugen 1-2 in the opening qualifier, the German picked up where he left off when Q2 was finally run after a number showers delayed the day’s schedule. With Dankel having a much greater advantage in the second qualifier it was Alessio Mazzeo, 1.2-seconds back, who would be closest to the German. With a lack of rear grip forcing him to pull off in the first round, Eduardo Escandon would resume his Top 3 seeding form and take 3rd for the round ahead of Dirk Wischnewski with Bruno Coelho and Thilo Tödtmann completing the Top 6. Having got a P4 in Q1, reigning champion Teemu Leino would hit trouble just as the cars completed the warm-up for Q2 – the screw in the pulley on the two speed shaft coming loose with him missing the first 3-minutes of the qualifier as they fixed it.

Commenting on his Q2 run Dankel said, ‘It was pretty good but I thought my car wasn’t as good in the conditions’.  With two rain stoppages between the first and second qualifiers causing Q2 to run much later than originally scheduled, Dankel said the hotter asphalt suited his MTX6R better with the car pushing a little on the cooler track. Despite this he said the overall feeling was still pretty good. Looking to tomorrow, 3 more qualifiers on the timetable and the weather showing no signs of further rain interruptions, the 2014 Champion said, ‘for sure I don’t change anything for Q3, I need one more run so we will see what we can do’.

‘A big improvement’ was Mazzeo’s reaction to his improved pace. Driving to a safe P5 in Q1 due to struggling with the feeling of his NT1, he said changes to the downstops and shock oil had made the car more stable.  Using the 4-minute warm-up to test the changes, he said he pushed too hard and as he got to the end of the actual qualifier he struggled as the tyres developed a lot of camber causing him a few moments.  A lot happier with how the day ended, the Italian will try a different camber for Q3 but is confident they now have a competitive car for the event.

Escandon was delighted to be back on form and when asked what had been the problem in Q1 replied ‘it was my fault’.  The Shepherd driver said, ‘I changed my servo linkage but didn’t check it and afterwards found it was giving me too much steering on one side but thanks to Alex Kempe I have a very good car again’.  With ‘small mistakes’ over the qualifier he concluded, ‘The car is there, I just need to sleep more and that should help me to drive better tomorrow’.

‘Again the engine tuning’, was how Wischnewski summed up posting the fourth fastest time.  The German added, ‘the weather changed a lot (affecting the engine) and also the car was not as perfect as the first one’.  He continued, ‘It took a long time to come in but at the end I had the same pace as Eric but I lost too much time at the start’.  Like Dankel he feels ‘in the hot conditions our car is better’ and will leave it unchanged for Q3 based on tomorrow forecast.

Coelho would also report his engine tuning as the reason for a slower second run.  The Xray driver said, ‘my engine was too rich and I was waiting for second gear then when I was not expecting it to change it did causing me to crash in the sweeper’.  Having had issues with his NT1 in Q1, he said a set-up change and a change of body position left ‘the car working very well but the engine didn’t want to cooperate’.

View complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Dankel leads Mugen 1-2 in Q1

Eric Dankel led a Mugen 1-2 in the opening round of 1:10 qualifying at ENS Germany, the former champion taking a very close encounter ahead of new team-mate Dirk Wischnewski with less than 1/2 a second separating the Top 4.  Behind the German duo, Bruno Coelho would complete the Top 3 followed by Teemu Leino, the reigning champion having a ‘little mistake’ on his final lap.  After an impressive run in practice when he posted the third fastest time, Eduardo Escandon would be the leading driver to hit issues in Q1 with his car unexplainably undriveable. With Dankel having to lift to avoid the out of shape Spaniard, the Shepherd driver would pull off expecting to find something wrong with his car which he didn’t.

‘Really close’ was Dankel’s reaction to the gap between himself and Wischnewski 0.031 of a second at the end of the 4-minute qualifier.  The ENS’ inaugural champion continued, ‘Edu was struggling and I had to lift once because of that but otherwise it was a good run’.  Happy with how his MTX6R is dealing with the Ettlingen track’s one of kind surface, for Q2 he will leave his car unchanged saying, ‘if the track hasn’t changed its just up to me to drive it’ – a quick rain shower towards the end of the 1:8 qualifier stopping action for a short time.

Fastest in practice, Wischnewski summed up his Q1 as a ‘good start’ adding ‘it was good, we could do the double’.  The former Ettlingen race winner said, ‘maybe my engine was a bit rich but all in all it was a good run and it was super close in the end’. Asked if he would make any changes for Q2, he replied, ‘we’ll look at what the weather is doing and see’.

Coelho described his qualifier as ‘quite strange’ with his Xray ‘kind of loose’ and ‘all round difficult to drive’.  The championship leader said, ‘I didn’t change anything so to be honest I don’t know how is was so hard to drive but we’ll have a good look at it to see if we can find something’.

‘It went pretty good’ was how Leino summed up his first qualifying attempt.  The Infinity driver added, ‘there was four 4 drivers within 4/10th or something so it was really close’.  Setting the fastest lap of the round, last year’s race winner said, ‘I was leading with 3 laps to go but had a little mistake at the end.  The car is ok so I’ll leave it the same and just try to make no mistake’.

Completing the Top 5, more than 2-seconds back on Leino, Alessio Mazzeo declared Q1 as having gone ‘so so’.  Only 6th fastest in practice, the runner-up at the season opener said they still ‘need to find feeling’ in the car adding it is ‘very hard to drive and we must improve it’. The World Championship podium finisher added, ‘this is the only track in the World with this surface and its a strange situation for sure’. Putting his P5 down to him taking a safe approach and not pushing over the 4-minutes he said that will continue to be his tact so as to arrive in the A-Main with just little changes each run so they finish every run in the Top 10.

View our event image gallery here.

Coelho tops 1:8 practice in Ettlingen

Having taken an unexpected 1:8 win at the Euro Nitro Series season opener in France, Bruno Coelho has topped seeding practice at Round 2 of the championship in Germany.  The Xray driver was quickest over 3-laps from reigning champion Simon Kurzbuch with Robert Pietsch completing the Top 3 at Minidrom Ettlingen.  With the track’s unique fine asphalt surface challenging drivers in terms of them finding a set-up that gives consistency even over a short run, best of the Italian’s in practice would be Carmine Raiola who posted the fourth fastest time ahead of fellow countrymen Mirko Salemi and former race winner Dario Balestri.

Setting his best time in the first of the 2 rounds of controlled practice, Coelho said, ‘Overall its very good but in the last one the engine was a little rich and the clutch was not perfect but we are on the pace’. Having partly put his 1:8 success in France down to the fact Mulhouse was not a typical 1:8 track, asked if he felt his pace today was a better endorsement of the improvements made to the RX8 he replied, ‘its very good to be able to show again that we have made a lot progress with our 1:8 car,  it is working really well again here’.  The Portuguese driver added however that the track surface is presenting a new set of challenges with the car changing quite a bit over the distance of the run despite there being ‘not much tyre wear’.  He said the issue is the mix of banked and flat corners as they each wear the tyre differently giving a ‘super strange’ feeling. While easy to get a fast car for a lap he said it is hard to get it ‘uniform for 5-minutes’ making it ‘difficult to manage the set-up’.  ‘Still tweaking the set-up’, he plans ‘a few changes for Q1’.

Only 0.054 off Coelho, Kurzbuch wasn’t fazed by being second to Coelho with the World Champion pleased that he could improve his Shepherd for CP2.  Winner of this event last year, he said ‘my 3-laps are OK and the rest of the run is quite good’ but like Coelho said, ‘we are still working to get more consistency from the car which due to characteristics of this track is one of the main challenges’.   He added, ‘the base set-up of the car is very good and we are now just making small adjustments to find the best way for the conditions.  One of the things he will try for Q1 is to change the position of the bodyshell.

‘Its getting better and better’ was Pietsch reaction to putting his car in the Top 3.  The Mugen designer said he was having a better day today mainly due to his driving.  Having been focused on Mugen’s entry into the Electric Touring Car market for the last two months he said didn’t get to do any 1:8 practice before the event and as he ‘not so young anymore’ he was having problems with his lines in free practice yesterday.  The former ENS Champion is also running a number of new parts on his car the Japanese manufacturer is testing for the World Championship and as they get a better understanding of the effects they have on the car the more they are able to adjust the set-up to suit.

Heading the large Infinity charge, Raiola summed up his performance in practice as ‘not bad’.  The World Championship finalist continued he ‘need(s) more traction’ but overall his car was better today than yesterday.  Admitting to not being a fan of the track surface, he intended to complete the first qualifier on used tyres.  Team-mate Balestri had the opposite opinion about his performance saying his car was better yesterday.  Winner here in 2015, he feels both the tyres and the track have changed and they now need to find a way back to the set-up they had yesterday when he was second fastest behind Kurzbuch.

Having departed from BMT after a brief stint with the Italian company, Salemi was pleased to take his self modified Mugen to the fifth fastest time.  A multiple ENS Finalist driving for BP Racing, the Italian said he has been happy with how his cars has run since first hitting the track here yesterday and with some small set-up tweaks it is easy to drive.  Set to run the car unchanged for Q1, the first two qualifiers taking place this evening, he will make an engine change to one of his ‘good’ ones.

View our event image gallery here.

Wischnewski top seed at ENS Germany

Dirk Wischnewski is the top seed for qualifying at Round 2 of the Euro Nitro Series in Germany after the new Mugen signing set the fastest 3-consecutive laps in controlled practice at Minidrom Ettlingen.  Winner of the race in 2015, the German topped the times from Round 1 winner Bruno Coelho with Eduardo Escandon completing the Top 3.  On the podium at the season opener Erik Dankel was fourth fastest ahead of reigning champion Teemu Leino and Mulhouse second place finisher Alessio Mazzeo.

‘Quite good, for a new car it has started good’, was Wischnewski’s reaction to becoming the top seed.  Fourth fastest in the first of the two rounds of controlled practice, he said a diff change for CP2 improved his MTX6R a lot.  With it ‘now more easy to drive’  he will leave it unchanged for Q1,  the first two of the five scheduled rounds of qualifying taking place later today’.  Asked about the switch to Mugen after his long stint as Shepherd’s top 1:10 team driver, the former European Champion replied, ‘the car felt completely different at the beginning and I had to get used to it but I like the car’.

Fastest in CP1, Coelho said ‘we tried a different set-up for the second one but it wasn’t until right at the end that it got better’. Finishing just under 2/10ths off Wischnewski but with the fastest lap of controlled practice, the Xray driver said, ‘overall I’m happy with the car’s performance and for the first qualifier we will go for a set-up in the middle (of those be ran in CP1 and CP2).

On his first visit to the Ettlingen track since it underwent a resurfacing in 2014, Escandon reacted to his Top 3 pace by saying, ‘I’m really happy with my car and engine package but the driver need to be a little better’.  Joining Shepherd for the 2017 season, the Spaniard added, ‘Its my first time on the new track and I feel I need more practice because the grip is really strange.  You need to drive really careful on the steering because the car has too much grip at the front and its very easy to lose the rear’.  With a mistake on one of his 3-counting laps, the Round 1 fifth place finisher said, ‘the car is on pace so I will leave it for Q1 and just try to improve my driving’.

‘Overall its ok’ was Dankel’s reaction to his practice.  The former Champion continued, ‘the first one was OK but it felt like I pulled a few others around in the last one and helped give them good laps times’.  With his CP1 time counting, contact with another car on the penultimate lap of CP2 ended his chances of a better time with his first two laps having been up on those of his counting time.  Asked about having a new team-mate, having been Mugen’s sole represented for the last year, Dankel replied, ‘yes its good to have a team-mate to work with and Dirk is also a good friend’.  In terms of set-up he said they run the cars 90% the same with the 10% difference to suit their individual driving styles.

Leino summed up practice with, ‘its so, so, not too bad’.  The Infinity driver, who suffered a DNF at the season opener, said, ‘this track is always the same, all the 1:10 cars drive square and thats something we are still working on to make it more smooth to drive’.  He added, ‘usually 1:10 always push but here not, it’s a pretty unique surface’.

View our event image gallery here.