Pietsch completes dream debut for MTX-5
Having won his first 1:8 European Championship title when he debuted Mugen’s MRX-5 in 2009, Mugen designer Robert Pietsch pulled off another dream result for the Japanese company when he lifted his first 200mm European Championship title today in Germany on the debut of the new MTX-5 touring car. Top Qualifier for the event and starting from pole position for the 45-minute main, having dominated his Semi, the 1:8 World Champion lead every one of the 191 laps with former champion Dirk Wischnewski the only driver with the potential to deny him failing to mount a serious challenge. The Xray driver had to settle for second with team-mate Teemu Leino, who finished four laps down, completing the podium in Ettlingen.
Very proud of securing for a third time a major title for a car he was responsible for designing and bringing to fruition, Pietsch said the race went pretty much to plan and without drama. Having a small moment when he got spun by Adrian Bernsten while lapping the Norwegian, he said having had issues in the past with the MTX-4 he was really pleased with the reliability of its successor. Having lapped the entire field at one point Pietsch said after an early final stop he started to lift off on the straight to ensure he had fuel to go the full distance which allowed Wischnewski to close back to within half a lap of him. After a week that started off under a cloud of controversy of trying to control the use of tyre additive, Pietsch wanted to pay compliments to the efforts of race organisers for making the tyre impound work and in the end putting on a good & fair event.
Clearly wanting the title he won in 2009 back, Wischnewski said in the end finishing second was ‘OK’. The German said he struggled with a bad first set of tyres and trying to keep up with Pietsch pushed too hard resulting in a mistake coming onto the straight that lost him four seconds and gave his rival a big enough break to take control of the race. Pitting on the same lap as Pietsch for his tyre change that gap grew to almost a full lap when his engine flamed out as his car was set down to leave the pitlane.
Having always had trouble in finals in the past, former Top Qualifier Leino was very happy at claiming his first podium finish. Calculating his tyre wear after the Semi finals the former European electric touring car champion opted to just change his outside (right) tyres during the race. Hoping the saved time would give him an advantage the Xray/LRP team driver said the car was ‘horrible’ following the change. Battling with 2009 finalist Biagio Spataro for third position, Leino was eventually able to cruise to third when the Italian teenager retired with fuel in his electrics.
Spataro was the only driver running a two stop tyre strategy and it came close to rewarding him with a podium finish. Deciding to run the same tyre set-up he used in qualifying allowing him to run just 7/1000ths off Wischnewski’s fastest lap of the race, on his penultimate pitstop his mechanic over filled the tank causing fuel to get into the electrics ending the 16-year-old’s race. Some consolation for Spataro was that ninth overall was good enough to secured him the European Junior Championship title.
With Spataro out fellow Italian and former two time champion Dario Balestri moved up to fourth. Having called for 10-minutes after problems with his radio receiver in the warm-up, the factory Novarossi driver started the race from 11th on the grid. Changing the shock oil and springs on his KM Racing H-K1 having not been happy with it in the Semi, Balestri said it didn’t improve things. His first major race with the car, he had a heavy off which caused his receiver to come unplugged. Loosing over a minute as his team got the electric working again he dropped to seventh which was where he would be classified for the race.
Making the final for the first time Germany’s Rico Kröber said he was very happy with finishing fourth. Struggling with the larger tyre diameter at the start of the race, the Xray/Novarossi driver changed tyres one stop later than the rest and with his second set having a smaller diameter he had a better second half to the race. Behind him Austrian Manuel Huber, a podium finisher in 2009, had a problem with the oil leaking from his rear shocks but said considering this and some issues with his Max engine fifth was ‘OK’.
The only driver to do the full race without changing tyres, France’s Michael Derderian saw any advantage it might bring disappear with his RB engined Xray running out of fuel twice. Another driver making his first European final debut he would complete the Top 6.
One of the driver expected to win the race from third, Eric Dankel suffered two glow plug failures and was the final classified finisher in 8th. The versatile German racer said his Novarossi powered Xray NT1 felt really good but with his engine problems it just wasn’t to be. Along with Spataro the only other retirement in the final was talented Norwegian Champion Adrian Bernsten who suffered an engine failure coming up to the 1/3 race distance.
So the eighth running of the European Championships for 1:10 200mm touring cars is in the history books with Robert Pietsch becoming the 6th different champion. While the use of tyre additive looked set to the dog this event early in the week today’s racing, especially in the 1/4 and Semi finals, showed 200mm at its best and Red RC would like to thank new champions Mugen, Team Shepherd and Matrix tyres for making our coverage of this event possible. With rumours of a new high profile series for both onroad nitro classes doing the rounds in Germany the future of nitro onroad is thankfully starting to look brighter.
View the full event results here.
View our event image gallery here.