Coelho wins ENS season opener
Man of the moment Bruno Coelho has won the opening round of Season #2 of the Euro Nitro Series in Bologna, Italy. Making his ENS debut, the factory Xray driver took victory in the 45-minute encounter over the HB of Jilles Groskamp and his Xray World Champion team-mate Alexander Hagberg. Top Qualifier Teemu Leino’s race would come to a sudden end when having lead the race for 25-minutes the Finn would pull a front corner of his HB as he hit the pitwall as he came in for a scheduled stop. 2014 ENS title front runner Dominic Greiner would suffer a similar faith as he broke the rear suspension on his Serpent 10-minutes into the race.
Delighted with his race Coelho afterwards said ‘finally a win’, the new star of international onroad racing having been unlucky not to win last weekend’s ETS third round that was also held in Italy. Set to contest all four rounds of the ENS, he continued ‘it is a perfect start for the championship’. Having got the race off to a strong passing Leino on the third lap on the very next lap he would flip his Max powered NT1’15 after getting caught out by the high ride height he was running on his new NT1 ’15 for the long race. Losing 5-seconds as a result of the mistake and dropping to 10th, he would set about a strong recovery. Getting back up to second his quest for a win on his ENS debut would be made all the easier by Leino’s exit from the race. Having considered a tyre strategy of changing just the outside tyres he said that would have been a bad decision and his call to change all 4 of the event handout Matrix tyres was correct. Changing his Max engine for the final to one that he ran in practice and put aside specifically for the Main, the 21-year-old said it was ‘super good’ from start to finish. Stopping at 4:30 intervals he said everything but that one early mistake went to plan and he is already looking forward to Round 2 in Aigen, Austria, in June.
‘(I) Must say I’m happy with second starting from 7th’ was Groskamp’s reaction to the race. The Dutch ace’s first race with the R10, he made ‘a lot changes’ for the final and it ‘felt really good getting faster as the tyres went lower’. Suffering from his engine going rich on the bottom end allowing both Hagberg and Coelho go by, he said on having it adjusted during one of his fuel stops the change made was too big turning the engine too lean. This resulted in a crash as he overshot a corner losing over 10-seconds. Saying he then had nothing to lose he would ‘just go for it’ making in a number places over the middle of the race. Pitting just to change outside tyres he said once in second in knew Coelho was already too far ahead to catch and he went safe for the rest of the race as he could hear the engine tune was making the Maxima unit work extras hard. The high bottom end also caused him to overshoot his pitstops a number of time with the 2012 Electric Touring Car World Champion saying everything considered he was ‘really happy’ to start his ENS campaign with a second considering it was his first race with a new car and that the track was different to anything they have raced it on before.
After a poor start to the event having struggled in practice and early qualifying Hagberg was happy to make the podium. Starting from 8th on the grid the Swede said he is ‘always better in the final than qualifying’ and it would have bee nice for Xray if he could have made it a 1-2 finish but getting hit by a back marker ended that possibility. The contact would chunk one of his tyres and having to finish the race with this cost him second place. Other than suffering a flame out during his tyre stop he said the rest of the race went to plan.
Having bumped up from the B-Main to take the 12th & final spot on the grid, Gerhard Kandlehart was delighted to take his Shepherd to fourth. The Austrian, joking ‘for an old man the pace is too fast’, said he just ‘kept going around easy for the 45-minutes’ and ‘it worked out’. Only changing his outside tyres the former 235mm European Champion compliment his pit crew for a ‘super fast’ stop.
Finishing fifth Xray’s Martin Hudy said ‘as a it was a very good race and we came so close to getting a 1-2’. As a driver the race was ‘very frustrating’. Suffering a crash caused by traffic on the third lap he said this left his car tweaked. First thinking he had a damaged tyre as a result of the incident he pitted for new tyres but the car was still not right and for 44-mins he ‘was struggling not racing’ just trying to survive to the finish.
Completing the Top 6 Alessio Mazzeo’s hopes of a win on his ENS debut would disappear when the Serpent ran out of fuel just before his first stop. Despite recording the fastest lap of the race, the 2013 European Champion would suffer a number of flame outs and leave the Italian to finish 10-laps down on the winner.
Also Top Qualifier at last year’s season opener but only finishing 4th, Leino was looking on target for his first ENS win until he made his tyre change. The former World Championship Top Qualifier opted to change just his outside tyres which left his R10 car pulling to one side. While able to control it on the track through his radio’s wheel, coming in for his next fuel stop he didn’t make the correction causing the left side of the car to hit the start of the pit wall resulting in instant retirement.
Struggling with his 748 being really loose, Greiner was struggling with his car but able to run 5-minutes between stops he was hoping the 2-stops saved would give him a chance of a podium finish. Not sure as to whether it was the set of tyre or the track temperature that lost him his speed, struggling with the car under breaking for the pits it broke loose and collected the right side pit wall ending the 2014 ENS race winner’s final. While reigning champion Eric Dankel didn’t even make the Main, championship runner-up Dirk Wischnewski wouldn’t fare much better as his race lasted just 4-laps as his engine suffered a conrod failure.
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