Championship leader Balestri sets early Fiorano pace
Euro Nitro Series championship leader Dario Balestri set the pace in free practice at the season finale in Fiorano, Italy. The Capricorn driver set the pace ahead of Shepherd’s Francesco Tironi with title rival Robert Pietsch making a promising start to proceedings on the debut of Mugen’s new MRX-6 with the third fastest time. Defending champion Simon Kurzbuch, who sits just 2-points off Balestri, would post the 4th fastest 3-consecutive laps with his Shepherd. Behind Kurzbuch, the fourth title contender, albeit with a very slim chance, WRC’s Andrea Pirani would set the 5th fastest time.
Securing his first 1:8 ENS win at the previous round in Germany, Balestri said ‘I have a good package and I just need to improve something small but I’m happy with my pace’. While its a track he knows probably better than his rivals, last years 200mm race winner said ‘its not an easy track but we start the event good’. Asked about the championship battle, the former European Champion said ‘I am not thinking about points, my focus is just the race and getting the best result’.
Having only had one test day with his latest creation, Pietsch was ‘already very happy with the new car’. The Mugen designer said compared to its predecessor the MRX-6 reacts different and he has had to change his driving style to suit this. With the brakes on the new car moved back to the gearbox shaft and the rear end much lighter he said this has moved the weight more to the centre. With the MRX-5 loose under braking he said the 6 is the opposite adding it requires a style of driving more like that of electric touring cars.
Kurzbuch said while a change for the final practice was not an improvement , he said overall things were ‘running really well’. He added his Velox V8 is good but he still wants to find ‘that last little piece’ to give him the perfect car. Set to go back to his morning set-up, the Swiss ace is looking to get his 3-laps done in he first of the timed practices allowing him then to use the final practice as a practice qualifying run, the first of the four qualifiers taking place this evening. Describing conditions as ‘special’ this weekend, the ENS Aigen winner said that due to a major 1:5 scale race held last weekend the grip was high and he expects this is how it will remain for the weekend.
Pirani said practice had been a little bit difficult as he was ‘searching for steering’. Only arriving yesterday while most of his rivals arrived earlier in the week, the Italian was confident they would catch up the track time having already made good progress with improving the GTX since arriving. Admitting himself that he would need some sort of miracle to win the title, he said his aim is for a podium on Sunday which should also give him a podium finish in the overall championship.
Making his return to the ENS after his win at Round 1 in Bologna, Lamberto Collari makes his Infinity debut in the championship. The legendary Italian, who has a 100% ENS winning record winning all three races he has contested over the past two season including this race last year, is expecting a challenging weekend. Saying the level of the ENS is very high he added it makes winning always challenging but with the extra element of working with a brand new car and team makes that challenge even greater. Running a pre-production version of 1:8’s newest manufacturer, Collari said the key objective of running at the ENS this weekend was while testing can help you improve a car it is competitive racing that allows you to gauge exactly where things are at and this will be important for the development of the project.
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