Green & Lissau complete 1:10 grid

Mark Green and Martin Lissau complete the twelve car 1:10 Touring Car grid at the closing round of the Euro Nitro Series.  The pair booked their place in the 45-minute Main by finishing 1st and 2nd in the 20-minute B Final at the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter.  Starting from 2nd on the grid Green would take his Serpent to a 2-second victory over Lissau, the Shepherd driver starting last on the grid having bumped up from the C Final.  Unfortunately for Singapore visitor Nicholas Lee, while he kept contact with the leaders he couldn’t get his Xray into the Top 2 missing the chance to contest the main event on his ENS debut.

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D’hondt & Salven bump up

Robin D’hondt and Michael Salven will take part in the main event at the ENS season finale after finishing 1-2 in the 1:8 B-Final at Fiorano.  Completing the 12 car grid that will battle for victory at the fourth & final round of the inaugural championships, d’Hondt, who started 5th, took his Picco powered Motonica to a 1.3 seconds victory in the 20-minute affair over the similarly powered Serpent of Salven who in terms of laps led the majority of the race.  For ENS Round 2 race winner John Ermen, who started from pole, a dead receiver battery would see the Xray driver crash spectacularly out of the lead on lap 6 before having to retire two laps later.  This left Hot Race tyre boss Nicola Marrone to lead but the Serpent driver would eventually get passed by Salven, d’Hondt and eventually HB’s Adrien Bertin, the former world champion having an intense battle with the Italian throughout the race.

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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.

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Clean sweep from Balestri at ENS

Dario Balestri pulled off a clean sweep of qualifying at the season finale of the ENS in Fiorano with the Capricorn driver topping all five rounds.  Having wrapped up his first overall TQ in the championship in Q3, the Italian showed no signs of letting up continuing his domination in the final two rounds.  Posting the 2nd and 3rd fastest time respectively in the closing qualifier, that is the position Serpent’s Dominic Greiner and Shepherd Dirk Wischnewski will line up behind Balestri for the 45-minute final.

With it hard to bet against Balestri taking his first ENS win tomorrow bar mechanical issues, Round 2 winner Greiner seems to be the only real threat to a home win for Capricorn, the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter being where the manufacturer does most of its development testing.  Having ‘changed a lot’ on his Max powered 748 for the final qualifier, Greiner said this gave him oversteer with him describing the 4-minutes as being ‘very difficult’.  Needing to find the right balance for tomorrow, the German said they will test for this in the 10-minute A-Main practice but he thinks they know what direction they need to go in.

Having targeted a Top 3 starting position, Wischnewski said third on the grid was ‘ok’.  Tied for second in the championship standings with Greiner and team boss Patrick Schafer, the former European Champion said while he made a mistake on the first lap of Q5 and then overdrove for a few laps he is happy with how easy his car is to drive.  Planning to run the car the same for the final, the German said due to the low tyre wear of the track, strategy is going to be less of a factor in the final so finding a way to catch Balestri will be hard.  Describing his Orcan engine’s consumption as good this is possibly one place he can try to make up time with less fuel stops.

Shepherd team-mate Francesco Tironi will start 4th on the grid.  Having tried different set-ups in the final two qualifiers, the World Championship podium finisher said he will revert to a set-up he ran yestrerday.  Describing that set-up as a good compromise between speed and consistency he said his aim for the final was consistency adding once he had that he would go from there.

With 10 direct qualifiers and two bumping up from the B-Final to make a 12-car grid, champion elect Eric Dankel will start 5th.  Winner of two ENS races, the Capricorn driver said since this morning he has struggled.  A lack of feeling from the car’s steering he said as it stands now he is ‘not competitive’.  While his set-up not much different to Balestri, he said his team-mate just knows the track better and he is better able to drive it better even as the conditions change over the day. Behind Dankel, Mario Spiniello completes the top half of the grid as the top Xray followed by Patrick Schafer.

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