Balestri tops practice at ENS Finale
Dario Balestri has topped 1:10 Touring Car practice at the season finale of the Euro Nitro Series, the Capricorn driver having a considerable advantage over his rivals on 3-consecutive laps of the Fiorano track. Closest to the Italian was Serpent’s Dominic Greinier, the ENS Round 2 race winner 4/10ths off in the seeding times that will determine the starting order for the qualifying which gets underway later today with the first two of five scheduled rounds. Team Shepherd’s Francesco Tironi would complete the Top 3 ahead of team-mate Dirk Wischnewski and champion elect Eric Dankel.
Running Capricorn’s new CO3 chassis, which since making its debut at the European Championships has an all new chassis plate, Balestri declared himself pretty happy with his early pace. Describing the Mini Autodromo Jody Scheckter circuit as ‘the best in Italy’, he is no stranger to the track as this is where his Italian team conducts the majority of its testing and it is also where he claimed the first of his four European title when he became the 1:8 B Champion in 2004. Commenting on the new car he said the biggest difference is in the steering which he described as ‘pretty high’ and with the car still new to him he feels there is a lot more time to come out of it.
Dominic Greiner said while his ‘pace is ok’ his 748 is ‘not feeling very good to drive at the minute’, something he said is due to the rubber laid down last weekend when the track hosted a 1:5 race that attracted 150 entries. Running a new prototype gearbox and diffs in his car, the German said while it has good corner speed he needs more steering. His first race for new engine sponsor Max, for the first qualifier he will drill holes in his front bumper as well as making caster adjustment.
Tironi summed up practice as having gone ‘not bad’ saying his Velox V10 was quite good and would be good for a final. Looking to get a little more steering both on his entry on to the straight and again through the sweeper after it for Q1 he will go from 500w to 550w oil in his front shocks as well as adjusting his rear toe.
Describing Balestri as being ‘in a different world’ in terms of his pace, Wischnewski said ‘so far its ok’ feeling he is on par with the rest of the front runners. His first time to race at the Fiorano track, like Greiner he said the track is tricky following the 1:5 event. Laying down a lot of rubber the former European Champion said if you touch the curbing it pulls the car in. With Hot Race the controlled tyre of the fourth & final round of the ENS, the German said for him their is a big difference between the first and the second run on the tyre with the second much better.
‘Not bad but not super good’ was double race winner Dankel’s summary of his practice pace. Describing the hand out tyres he got for controlled practice as being slightly harder than those he was using in open practice, the German said this left his CO3 with a little understeer. Able to improve this between the first & second controlled practice with some set-up changes, he said overall the car is very consistent over 4-minutes and he will just reduce the rear droop for the opening qualifier.
Behind Dankel, Italian Shepherd driver Christian Costanzo completed the Top 6 followed by Shepherd owner Patrick Schafer, Xray’s Mario Spiniello and KM Racing’s Silvio Hächler along with European B Champion Thilo Tödtmann round out the Top 10.
View our event image gallery here.
