Dankel claims first ENS TQ

Eric Dankel has secured his first overall TQ of the Euro Nitro Series.  Having posted a TQ run in the second qualifier at the German round, the Mugen driver backed that up with another in Q3 leaving only Jilles Groskamp as a rival for the 1:10 pole position.  However with rain interrupting the third round of 1:8 qualifying at the Ettlingen track, the latest rain delay left the organisers with little option but to cancel the fourth & final round of qualifying meaning the grid will be based on two of the three run qualifiers.  With Dankel achieving a perfect score with his two TQ’s, Teemu Leino would secure P2 on the grid thanks in his P2 in the third qualifier with last year’s Top Qualifier Dominic Greiner, despite an gearbox issue in Q3, completing the Top 3.  Having opened the day with a TQ but struggled somewhat in the next two, reigning champion Jilles Groskamp will line-up fourth with Patrick Nähr and ENS Italy Top Qualifier Bruno Coelho completing the Top 6.

‘I’m very happy to claim my first TQ’, said Dankel continuing ‘I have been practicing a lot this year’.  Winning his 2014 title without topping qualifying, he continued ‘I am much more focussed this year as I know I lacked time and it feels good to be competitive again’.  Making the switch to Mugen for his 2016 campaign, the German qualified 5th in Bologna but with a lack of time to prepare a wet car he would sit out the final.  Starting and finishing 7th at his home track last year, then driving for Capricorn, looking to tomorrow’s final he said, ‘Robert (Pietsch) has made a very good car for me, I like driving it and I’m confident for the race’.  Asked about a set-up for the final, he said ‘I had the choice yesterday to go with a soft or harder set-up and I opted for the harder.  It worked for qualifying and I think it will also be good for the final as it will better suit my aggressive driving style’.

Having not raced 1:10 at the season opener, Leino was happy to qualify P2.  A driver with two 1:10 ENS TQs to his credit, the Team Infinity driver said the Capricorn he is running is ‘easy to drive’ adding ‘if I don’t hit my typical problems I should have a good final’.  Confident he has good fuel mileage from his Novarossi engine, the Finn, who took a P2 in Q3, said while there is ‘really low wear’ he feels it will be necessary to ‘still change some tyres’ based on the A-Main going the full 45-minute distance should rain not cause more interruptions tomorrow.

Greiner was content with P3 given his gearbox issues saying ‘from P3 the win is always possible’.  With an inconsistent change in Q2, in Q3 his car got stuck in 2nd gear, but the Serpent driver is hopeful they have found a solution for the problem saying, ‘we hope we have found the problem’. Set to fit a complete new gearbox, he said the A-Main practice should let them get it set for the final.  Running Novarossi engines like Leino, he too felt he has good mileage saying ‘the run time is good’.  Asked about tyres he replied ‘it could be possible to run the final on one set’ but the reaction of his mechanic indicated otherwise.

If there was one driver who could manage such a strategy successfully it would be Groskamp.  Having struggled with a diff issue in Q2 & 3 in his Serpent, the intervention of the car’s designer Michael Salven may set the ‘thinking driver’ up for a potential first ENS race win.  Taking his standard kit 748 to a TQ run in the opening qualifier in the next two after starting out well the car would get loose leaving him to struggle to the finish.  Suspecting it was diff related, fitting a new one between rounds, the Dutchman has been given a diff from the older 733, which features larger gears, to run in the car for the final.

With ENS Round 1 winner Dirk Wischnewski struggling following a P3 in the opening qualifier leaving him 9th on the grid, Patrick Nahr will be the best place Shepherd on the grid in P5.  Winner of this race last year,  it wouldn’t be right to discount Wischnewski from a good result as his win in the wet in Bologna was from 8th on the grid and rain is expected to appear at some stage tomorrow.

Posting his best qualifier at Minidrom Etttlingen in Q3, when he was fourth fastest behind his Xray team-mate Marco Kaufmann, Coelho said the run was perfect but going into the final he feels he has a good ‘long distance’ package.  Asked about tyres he said ‘Jilles could do it on one set but with a sweeper onto & at the end of straight it would be difficult to not at least change the outside tyres’.

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Chassis Focus – Bruno Coelho

Chassis – Xray RX8 ’16
Engine – Max RP 9.0
Fuel – Runner Time
Tires (handout) – Enneti
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Body – Protoform R18

Remarks – Portuguese star Bruno Coelho is here in Ettlingen running the latest version of the Slovakian made car. Charged with the development of the RX8 he managed to put this almost kit standard car into 3rd in the 2nd round of qualifying only equipped with titanium screws, optional Hudy servo horns and graphite gears.

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Kurzbuch doubles up in Q2 at ENS Germany

Simon Kurzbuch made it two from two in the second round of qualifying at the Euro Nitro Series in Germany.  The Team Shepherd driver backed up his P1 in the opening qualifier with another in Q2, this time ahead of ENS Italy Top Qualifier Dario Balestri.  With last season’s two title protagonists separated by 3/10ths of a second, the real surprise of the round would come from 1:10 title contender Bruno Coelho, the Xray driver completing the Top 3 as he matched Kurzbuch and Balestri with 19-lap runs around the Mindrom Ettlingen track.

Having summed up his Q1 performance as ‘a good morning’, Kurzbuch joked after the second qualifier, ‘now it’s a good afternoon’.  Coming into the event with a single point lead in the standings over Balestri, who must now TQ the remaining two qualifiers to deny his Swiss rival a 3rd career ENS TQ, the 2014 ENS champion said of Q2, ‘It was very good for the first 2 & a half minutes but then I had a little traffic.  After that I had to push really hard to get back out in front’.  Describing his Novarossi powered Velox V8 as ‘again working good’ he said while in the warm-up the track felt a little loose after the rain shower, once the qualifier started there was no big difference to Q1.   Planning to run his car unchanged in Q3, it the only car to run a 12-second lap time, when asked if he planned to start working on set-up for the final he replied ‘the car already has a good feeling for a final’.  Describing the car as ‘really stable’, he added ‘my car is not like last year when my qualifying set-up was not suitable for the final so we are in a good position’.

‘I lost time on the last laps with another driver, I don’t know who’, was a slightly frustrated Balestri’s reaction after Q2.  The Capricorn driver continued, ‘anyway Simon is super fast and I have to adjust small things to improve my car’.  Winner of the race last year from P2 on the grid, the Italian appears determined to find the speed he is missing to ensure Kurzbuch doesn’t start on pole and double his championship advantage by claiming the bonus TQ point.

Coelho was particularly pleased with his P3 especially given he is charged with the development of Xray’s 1:8 Onroad chassis.  Excited by the improvement made to the RX8 for this event, with seventh in practice giving them good hope for the weekend, he said nerves got the better of him in Q1 with him driving like ‘a newbie’.  Settling down for Q2, he said while they had the car running well here at the European Championship last year it was nothing special but now the car is working well adding, ‘I have never had the car like this before’.  Making ‘many little mistakes’, the 1:10 ENS race winner said without these I would have been P2 but after that Simon is super fast’.  Set to leave the car unchanged for the penultimate qualifier he will work on putting in a cleaner 4-minute run.

Posting the fourth fastest time Robin D’hondt described his second qualifier as ‘pretty good’.  Running in the second fastest heat and P8 in the opening heat, the Belgian who joined Capricorn for 2016, said a toe in adjustment cured some of the on throttle oversteer he had in Q1 and this is were the improvement came from.  Planning to make as yet unknown set-up changes for Q3 when asked what he wanted to achieve with the changes he replied ‘A 19-lap run’.

Only 16th in Q1, the ENS’ most winning 1:8 driver Lamberto Collari described the second P5 in Q2 as ‘much better than the first one’.  The 9-time World Champion, who heads a star studded Infinity team, said the problem in Q1 was that having fitted a new engine and gearbox to his car for the final two practices rounds, when they were cancelled due to the rain it meant he went into the Q1 warm-up trying to tune both the engine and gearbox shift point and he ultimately didn’t get it all set right.  With it much better for Q2, he said with the car having ‘not bad speed’ they need to look at ways to make it ‘more consistent’.

Completing the Top 6 was Alberto Picco.  Finding his Mugen ‘a little loose’ in Q1 the engine boss said he ‘had to be very careful on the throttle’ but still got it wrong on the sweeper.  Although it only cost him a few tenths he said on the time sheets it translated to a ‘big error’ as it left him P9.  With a set-up change improving his Mugen for Q2 he would have to deal with traffic at the beginning but was able to push hard at the end.  Describing, ‘conditions of the track (as) not easy’, he plans to make small adjustments saying the are necessary to try and keep up with the ever changing track.  Behind Picco, would be the Italian engine manufacturers lead factory driver Robert Pietsch.  After a badly adjusted brake slowed him in Q1, the Mugen designer said his MRX6 was ‘really good’ but running behind ARC’s Silvio Hachler and then getting caught by Kurzbuch having to move out of the way and repass Hachler he lost his rhythm.

Having starred with P2 in Q1, Jilles Groskamp would, just like in 1:10, have problems in Q2.  Changing the engine in his Infinity he said it was not good.  The Dutchman also said at one point he thought it had started to rain such was his lack of traction.

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Chassis Focus – Kyle Branson

Chassis – Capricorn Lab C03
Engine – Tesla T12
Fuel – Tesla
Tires (handout) – Enneti
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/Tesla
Body – Protoform SRS

Remarks – Top British driver Kyle Branson is running a mostly standard version of the Italian Capricorn touring car. Testing some prototype kevlar gear diff cases, the harder material being better resistant to heat and stays cleaner due to the dirt not adhering as easily as with other materials, the car is also fitted with lightweight titanium screws.

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Dankel from Nahr in Q2

Eric Dankel has TQ’d the second round of 1:10 qualifying at ENS Germany, the former Champion putting his Mugen at the top of the time sheets for what would be a slightly slower round than the opening qualifier which was taken by Jilles Groskamp.  With rain showers causing delays throughout the second of the four scheduled qualifiers, when the top heat did come around it was Dankel who after 2-laps took control. Running in the second fastest heat it would be Patrick Nahr would would end up P2, separating two ENS race winners as Teemu Leino completed the Top 3.  Having surprised himself with a TQ run in Q1, reigning champion Groskamp could only manage P7 second time round, the Dutch ace feeling his car had a problem as he finished 2.3-seconds off Dankel.

‘I settled down a little in my driving’ was what Dankel attributed his improved form over 25th in Q1, the German said, ‘I made a stupid mistake, my fault, the car was good’.  Admitting ‘I know the track well’, this being the 2014 Champion’s home track, he said in Q2 his unchanged car was again ‘pretty good’ despite the rain showers reducing the traction from the opening round.  Looking to Q3 he said ‘I will change nothing, just drive, as the track is different every time now’.

Having suffered from ‘too much steering’ in Q1, Nahr said changing to a harder front sway bar had made his Shepherd ‘more easy to drive’.   Giving the former European B Champion ‘better corner speed’, he said he still needs to try to make the car a ‘little better’ and he will make some small set-up tweaks for the next qualifier, which due to the delays could be the final round.  The 24-year-old’s team-mate Dirk Wischnewski, who was P3 in Q1, would retire from the round after he crashed his Velox V10 into the pit wall. While it didn’t break the car, last year’s race winner said it left his bodyshell requiring attention.

Changing to a harder swaybar on his Capricorn after he traction rolled in Q1, Team Infinity’s Leino said he had a somewhat funny incident in the warm-up.  On the first run down the straight he had no steering going straight onto the grass, initially thinking this was as a result of the swaybar change he thought he was in for a difficult run but on further inspection it was discovered he had forgot to connect one of the front shocks.  With his famous pitman Masayuki Miura fitting it back on, the car was ‘much more easy to drive’ however blinded by a marshall one minute into the qualifier he would run into the back of Alessio Mazzeo’s Serpent.  Losing him 1-second he would miss out on a P2 run but it was worse for Mazzeo as his rear tyre was chunked in the impact and he ended up P31 having been P34 in Q1 also due to tyre issues.

Setting a P4 time, Dominic Greiner would report gearbox problems on his Serpent.  Describing the handling of his 748 as ‘OK’, he said the problem was the change point of the gearbox kept changing.  He added ‘I know what was wrong with the gearbox so we will fit a new one’.  Commenting on the ever changing track conditions, the driver with the most number of ENS TQs, said, ‘this time they were good for Eric and difficult for Jilles, they are challenging conditions’.

Traction rolling in Q1 to end up P12, Bruno Coelho would get a clean run to set the fifth fastest time.  Making suspension and geometry changes for the round, his Xray was ‘much better’. Conscious of the threat that rain could cause qualifying to be cut short and that his Q1 performance would leave him in the B-Main, the ETS Championship leader said ‘I had to drive easy to get points’. Describing it as ‘a good run’, he said the plan is to try and repeat it in Q3 leaving his NT1 unchanged.  Just 0.053 of a second off Coelho, Xray team-mate Leo Arnold would back up his P4 in Q1 by completing the Top 6.  The French driver said after the rain ‘traction was super low’ and he again ‘just put in a safe, consistent run’.

‘I ran the same car and tyres but it was super loose’, was Groskamp’s reaction after struggling in Q2.  The Team Infinity driver would spin off on his opening lap saying ‘the car didn’t feel the same’ and adding ‘something must have happened with the diff’.  Running a standard Serpent 748 kit this weekend, as he evaluates cars while waiting on Infinity to produce its first 200mm chassis, he said ‘its a pity it wasn’t the same as the morning run but I will fit a new diff if there is a third one (qualifying).  The reason for the uncertainty of there being a third round is the ominous black clouds over the track.

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