Coelho confirms he’s back in contention with 2nd TQ run

After a less than perfect start to his title defence qualifying, Infinity’s Bruno Coelho has confirmed, most importantly to himself, that he is back in the contention by ending Day 3 of the IFMAR ISTC World Championships in Thailand with a second TQ run.  The result means both Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski, the overnight TQ holder, and Coelho are the only two remaining drivers in contention for pole position here at Huge RC Circuit, with the sixth & final qualifier to be staged tomorrow morning ahead of the finals.  Taking Q4 when both Orlowski and Xray’s Marc Rheinard had mistakes, Coelho’s fifth round TQ ahead of his two protagonist endorsed that Coelho’s quest for a fourth consecutive World title is back on.  Another impressive run from David Ronnefalk would see the Buggy World Champion end the day with a 4th that’s secures him an A-Main grid starting position with last night’s Q1 winner Simon Lauter completing the Top 5.  Having celebrated taking the opening qualifier yesterday, and Lucas Urbain opening with a P3 in Q2 this morning, the rest of the day was challenging for Awesomatix in Modified.  In the Stock class however there was plenty for the second biggest manufacturer of these Worlds (Xray from official IFMAR stats the most represented brand here in Bangkok) with Awesomatix drivers dominating the action.  Olivier Bultynck opened the day with a TQ run before Lukas Ellerbrock added to his Q1 TQ by topping rounds 3, 4 and 5 to get locked in as the Top Qualifier.

Looking a lot more upbeat at the end of the day’s action giving his thoughts after taking Q5, Coelho said, ‘It is a very positive finish and a good way to go for tomorrow.  We found the way and this was a confirmation.  The round before we were kind of ehm not sure and I think this round was the confirmation we found the base.’  On his car and any changes between rounds, he said, ‘honestly I didn’t change anything from the round before to now I just felt more confident than before and I tried to start stronger and benefit from the tyres at the beginning and then just control the race to the end.’  Taking some time to come down off the driver stand after his TQ run asked about this he replied, ‘the referee just called me to basically say not really that he was sorry but to inform me that they gave a warning to Michal (Orlowski).’  Asked how he felt about getting passed his rival, he responded with, ‘on this I wont comment.’  Looking to tomorrow and the last qualifier before the 13th ISTC World Champion is crowned, Coelho said, ‘I think it is positive for sure.  I think we are finally where we worked for to be for the race and that’s real positive for tomorrow.’

Orlowski summed up the closing qualifier of the day with, ‘It was OK, Bruno is very fast at the beginning.’  The 1:12 World Champion continued, ‘My car is feeling OK, much better than last night, but I am not able to drive with confidence at the moment and we just have to think what to do for tomorrow.  The track will be different again.’  Asked if the morning suited his Schumacher better, the 25-year-old replied, ‘Maybe, but I think the pace is always there, like I had a 13.5 on the last lap, it’s just me being comfortable with the car for the whole run and in the morning & most of the day I am more comfortable.’  He added, ‘definitely the humidity went up tonight but yesterday Simon (Lauter) was super fast in this condition, Bruno struggled, and now it was different so people are changing stuff I guess.’  Having to open to let Coelho through in Q5, asked about the race referee’s call to open, he confirmed he asked him to but said it was too early and he opened up a lap later when he felt was the right time, however he said that got him a warning that he would get a penalty if he ignored the call again’.

‘I need to have at least one TQ to have a better chance to be further up but if I can stay P3 with say Michal first and Bruno second I think I am still in a good position so I am going to try to find some more’, that was Rheinard’s summary of the day.  The freshly turned 40-year-old continued, ‘we are lacking speed in the night time, the car is too easy, too stuck, so we could not get the right speed.  I thought in the beginning I lost time as I had a 14.0 on the first lap already so I drove bad but I thought in the end I am going to catch up again like I did the run before but in the night car is not free enough.  Q6 and the two first finals are in the day time so we will not make big changes but when it comes down to A3 we have to think about changing.  I just hope to stay in P3 which is all I can do now.’

A rather pleased Ronnefalk reacted to Q5 be describing it as ‘another great run’.   The Swedish offroad star explained, ‘I started up front this time so I could kind of follow the guys that are fast up front rather than starting at the back, then it is difficult to pace yourself.  So I followed Marc around the track for pretty much the 5-minutes and we kept the same distance so I knew I was on for probably a Top 5 if I just stayed there.  I tried to get him there on the last lap but I was 2/100ths of a second behind but obviously super happy because I got rid of my 11th place and swapped it with a fourth so that has me locked in for the show for sure.’  He added, ‘Right now if I had a Top 3 and Simon (Lauter) doesn’t improve I think I can even go ahead of him to be Top 5 on the grid but already super happy, the goal was to make the main and now anything can happy.’  Asking if his confidence with the touring is growing each round the Swede said, ‘for sure, as the car has got better with the changes we made for sure I feel very confident and I just know that I have a consistent car over the 5-minutes, maybe not the fastest on outright speed but I feel very good towards the end where other people seem to struggle a bit more.  It is just a matter of putting it together and keeping the car on the wheels and wait for those last 2-minutes when things can happen.’

World Champion comes good in Q4

World Champion Bruno Coelho has come good at a critical point of the IFMAR Electric Touring Car World Championships, the Infinity driver posting his first TQ run here at Huge RC Circuit as we get the second half of qualifying underway.  Having two P4 runs from the opening 3 rounds of 6, well off the standard of the reigning 3-time consecutive Champion of the category, he would top the fourth round with the second fastest outright time so far being just 0.079 off the best set by Michal Orlowski the round before.  For Orlowski, it was to be a through 4th effort, a change of set-up making his car more difficult to drive, and pushing to try catch Coelho he had big mistake on the last lap.  Second for the round would go to Jin Sawada, the Xray driver equalling his P2 from the opening round but being just 3/10th off on this occasion.  Having show he had the outright pace to run with the best touring car drivers in the World when he set the fastest lap of Q2 this morning, newly crowned 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Champion David Ronnefalk completed the Top 3 ahead of his Xray team-mate Marc Rheinard.  The first time outside the Top 3 for the Touring Car legend, Rheinard touched the curbing rolling his car twice with it luckily landing on its wheels but it was enough to deny him the TQ run he is keen to secure.  Antoine Brunet competed the Top 5, the round the RC Maker driver’s best result so far after some impressive showings in practice.

Putting it to Coelho if he was back in the game after his TQ performance, he replied, ‘For sure a big improvement, it was a positive also in an important moment in the race so let’s see for the next runs if we can keep it on.’  Asked if the had made a significant change to the car given his form in the opening three rounds, the driver from Lisbon said, ‘Honestly not, as I said before we just fixed the steering problem that I had.  I had a chance to talk with the Sanwa guy and they told me this is a bug that happens sometimes when you switch models and it keeps the old model steering on the new model selected basically.  When we checked in the pits and then when we went to pit lane something just happened.  Now with the steering fixed the car was good.’  Questioned about his car being ‘good’, he replied, ‘yes good, we still need to work on it.  Small changes for sure.’  Asked if things looked more positive now for the remaining 2-qualifiers, one more to run today, he said, ‘I think so and I hope so.  The car gives me the confidence for that, it’s a car I can say I can drive 5-minutes and really fight with it because before I was really struggling with the 5-minute.  Now I felt more comfortable.’

Sawada said his car was much better that round but was left rueing that he hadn’t pushed a little harder given how close it turned out he was to the final TQ pace.  Running in the second fastest heat, the Japanese driver said this is one the disadvantages of not being in the top heat as he is the one setting the pace and not really having others around him to gauge how much he needs to push.  The 27-year-old, who came up in many conversations in the build up to these World Championships, is confident he has more to come for the final two qualifiers as he currently sits 3rd in the ranking.

Joking with Ronnefalk if he was trying to make touring car drivers look bad, the Buggy World Champion laughed and replied, ‘I’m super happy to get a third.  I really needed those points because my goal was to make the main and I have a 3, 8, and 11 right now so probably need to better that 11 a bit but I have a very good chance now in the last two and make it into the A-Main which would be great.’  Explaining his improvement, having shown bursts of speed, the Swede said,  ‘In Q2 the first 10-laps were great but then the car started to do weird things on the track.  It started to jack a lot on power and wobble on to the straight so it was like super hard to keep it on the wheels but I tried my best, I think I was in the lead of Q2 for the first minute, and then I lost 6-second the last half of the race because I couldn’t keep the car on the track.  So that was not a nice feeling and we tweaked the set up for Q3.’  He explained, ‘we a removed a little bit of front end because I felt like it comes from the front end towards the end of the run and that makes it nervous to drive and aggressive, so I made it a little easier for Q3, I scored an 8th which was a good run’.  He continued, ‘I had something in mind I wanted to try for a couple of runs but didn’t really dare too so after Marc did the same change we both decided to do it for this one and for my driving style it certainly helped a lot to make it very consistent over the 5-minute.  Maybe a little understeer at times but just very easy so this is what you need on this track cause it’s easy that it bits you.  You can see a lot of drivers are struggling with that.’

Orlowski again from Rheinard in Q3

With the first half of qualifying complete at the IFMAR Electric Touring Car World Championships it was again the Schumacher of Michal Orlowski who took the third round TQ at Huge RC Circuit.  The fastest round so far, the Pole knocked 3/10ths off his Q2 topping time despite coming upon heavy traffic towards the end of the 5-minutes.  Behind, it was again Marc Rheinard who was closest, the Xray driver halving the gap to his rival, & good friend off track, to just 3/10ths of a second.  Impressing from the second fastest heat group in Q1 when he set the second fastest time, Jin Sawada completed the Top 3 after a P5 in Q2.  For defending World Champion Bruno Coelho it was another P4 run but the Infinity driver took some confidence from the run given he had a radio settings issue in the run after switching to his second car.  Axon’s Akio Sobue, another running in the B Heat would complete the Top 5.  After his dramatic exit from Q2, although not as destructive as Naoto Matsukura’s exit from the heat before that completely destroyed his Infinity, Q1 pace setter Simon Lauter would be the best of the Awesomatix drivers with P7 with Lucas Urbain having a bad run and ending up 34th for the round.

On his second TQ run of the day, and much happier on this ocassion, Orlowski said, ‘The traffic was crazy at the end of the run and for sure it cost me some time, and Marc, but everyone moved out of the way the best they could.’  On his car he said, ‘the balance of the car was really nice, it was very easy to drive but I think it lost a bit of speed that we had before so we need to look for it again.  It was super easy and I could do what I wanted with the car but we need to find a bit more raw speed to increase the gap.’

On his run Rheinard said, ‘This time we tried something.  The run before was better in the first laps so I was a bit slower but then I picked up pace again.  He (Orlowski) had a 13.5 on lap 16 and that was his two/three tenths advantage so it is pretty similar.’  He added, ‘With a 2, 2, 3 now I am free so for the next one we might try something but I mean want to have one TQ to be at least in P2 because there is still three chances for everyone to pick up a TQ so I think I am going to make one more change.’  Asked about the traffic at the end of the run, the German said, ‘I just had to pass Ronald (Volker) so for me it did not really effect much.  I know Michal said he had a lot of traffic but still we did 13.7 the last laps so it didn’t effect too much.’

Very good was how Sawada summed up his P3 run.  1.2-seconds off the TQ pace, the Japanese driver said while he had no mistakes the biggest issue was traffic and watching what was going on ahead of him with some cars suffering spins.  On his car he said a change to the set-up for Q2 was not to his liking so they reverted back for Q3 and it was ‘much better’.  Expecting much higher traction for Q4 he said they have no choice but to change the set-up for this but overall he is happy with his Xray.

With Coelho gesturing to his radio with his mechanic Francesco Martini on coming down from the drivers’ stand after Q3, asked had he some radio issue, he said, ‘Yeah I had some weird problem because we changed to our second car (for Q3) and for some reason, there was no reason because we used it in practice fine, the car was completely turning to the right side.’  He continued, ‘So before the start I had to adjust everything but randomly, nothing was really perfect.  When I start I had zero steering to the left and a lot of steering to the right side so I will take the positive side of that and say the car was actually pretty good for the condition it was.’  Explaining he would normally just switch between models on his radio no problem, he added that everything on the radio was zero like it should be so it was ‘really a random stress’.

Orlowski takes Q2, Lauter crashes out

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has opened Day 3 of the IFMAR Electric Touring World Championship by topping the second round of qualifying while Simon Lauter who took last night’s opening qualifier crashed out having again been right in the mix.  With the track proving faster this morning, 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Champion David Ronnefalk setting the fastest lap having held the top spot on the timing screen for the opening 4 laps of Q2, Orlowski bettered his opening qualifying time by 3.3-seconds and would have an advantage of almost 8/10ths over Marc Rheinard’s Xray with Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain completing the Top 3.  After a troubled start to qualifying yesterday, defending World Champion Bruno Coelho would have a slightly better second effort to take P4 but the Infinity driver was by his standards along way off Orlowski, the gap 1.8-seconds.  Explaining his crash that happened coming on to the main straight, a number of drivers reporting it cost them time, Lauter said, ‘I’m not sure whether it was traction roll or curb but I think just hitting the curb.  I had a .8 mistake the lap before so I knew I had to make something up and that’s just what happens when you go all in all and try something.  The car for sure was great again so Timmy (Tim Wahl) will check everything, fix it and we will be good for Q3.’

Summing up his TQ run Orlowski wasn’t overly happy saying, ‘I wasn’t happy with the car but at least it finished well.  The track is changing so the car is changing and we need to find a solution but of course it is awesome to get a good run with a TQ and there are still many rounds to go.’  Asked about the set-up he reported running out off time to put on his car for Q1, and if he ran this today, the 1:12 World Champion said, ‘I did in the morning (free practice run) and it was better towards the end of the run because now my pace at the end was very strong.’  He added, ‘I don’t think the track is necessarily changing much anymore but we’ve gone outside of our set-up window which we found in testing and we need to come back but also remember that the layout is different and the set-up needs to be a little different.’

He seen more World Championship than most and having celebrated his 40th birthday in the lead up to the race, a very content Rheinard said, ‘What can I say I still can’t complain, having a 2 & 3 after the two opening rounds is a pretty good for me.  We are still trying stuff and the car was pretty easy to drive.’  Winner of the ISTC World title 3-times, he continued, ‘I think Simon was a little bit in the lead in the beginning and then made a small mistake in the chicane so I was close but also Michal was behind me on a good pace.  Then when Simon crashed I think I had to lift a little bit on the straight and don’t have the perfect line so Michal catch up a bit.  When Michal made a mistake on the 3rd or 4th last lap I thought I should take it more easy but I took it too easy.’  He explained, ‘You know if you don’t push the car like before then you go slow so I went from 13.6 & 7 the last laps to 14.0 and a 13.9 when he was still doing a 13.6.  It was close.’  For the next one the German said, ‘maybe some small changes and try just to make another good run.  Then maybe try something bigger for the other rounds.  I mean I am happy so far so it is all good.’

Urbain was very upbeat about his Q2 and is a driver who is the clearly in the high confidence zone, declaring this is ‘one of the best cars I have ever driven anywhere, on one of the best layouts & facilities I have ever attended.  It is a blast to drive and I am having a tone of fun’.  On his performance, the French Champion said, ‘I’m very happy with that, as I said yesterday I knew there was more in the car.’  He continued, ‘It felt however too easy on that run.  Similar to yesterday I lost the front end towards the 3-minute mark and saw Michal in front of me pull away.  I lifted more than the other guys in the straight when Simon had the mistake.  I heard initially go low and then I heard some sounds around it, it could be the car was still drifting on the line, so I lifted off but anyway I would not have challenged Marc anyway.’  For Q3 he said, ‘I need slightly more steering, could be a very little stupid change, just minor, cause the car is obviously very good.  I don’t expect the track to change much, so reset and go again.’

Reacting to his run, Coelho said, ‘It was a tough round, I start pretty OK, then I start in the middle of the run to feel like the tyres are overheating and then I just try to save the run to the end and try to make some points as yesterday was not a good run.  Not the place we expected for sure.’  Asked about ideas for set-up changes for the next round, the Portuguese driver replied, ‘for sure we always have ideas but we are running out of time basically.  For sure we will change things for the next one.’

Lauter delivers opening TQ in Thailand

One of the most unassuming drivers in the Touring Car’s top flight category, Awesomatix’s Simon Lauter delivered an impressive TQ performance in the opening qualifier at the IFMAR ISTC World Championships in Bangkok this evening.  Having hinted at his potential with some competitive 5-minute form in practice, the German would top the first of the six scheduled qualifiers by 7/10ths of a second from an equally impressive Jin Sawada who came in under the radar after seeding into the second fastest heat.  Behind the Japanese driver, this his first Worlds with Xray, was another Worlds debutant with the Slovakian manufacturer Marc Rheinard.  No stranger to World Championships, Rheinard completed the Top 3 1.1-seconds off his former team-mate Lauter.  The driver to actually lead out the first round of qualifying, Michal Orlowski would end up 4th fastest, the Schumacher driver showing great respect to Lauter by opening up for German as his car wasn’t exactly as he planned for the qualifier.  Behind the Polish driver, Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain posted the 5-fastest time ahead of Axon’s Akio Sobue.  It was to be a less than ideal start to the campaign of defending World Champion Bruno Coelho.  Having been the benchmark in practice over 3-laps and securing the Top Seed honours, he would suffer an early spin in Q1.  Chasing a fourth consecutive title here at Huge RC Circuit, explaining his mistake the he said, ‘the car in the beginning felt like it was wobbling on the long corners so I tried to avoid that by not steering too much but then on the end of the straight I went a bit wide and I probably picked up dirt and then I lost the rear of the car.’  Having become accustomed to Oliver Bultynck being at the top of the times in the Stock class, Q1 saw that change as his Awesomatix team-mate Lukas Ellerbrock took it from the Belgian.  Having seeded P6, the 2026 TITC Open Brushless Champion snatched the TQ run on the final lap from Bultynck by 0.169 of a second with Max Machler completing the Top 3.

A very popular TQ run from Lauter, putting it to the reigning Stock Class World Champion that he had hinted he had good qualifying pace, he said, ‘Actually the 5-minutes were not too good in CP2 and CP3 so we had to change something.’  With his mechanic Tim Wahl’s role in the rise of Lauter as one of the worlds leading driver widely acknowledge on him taking the result, the 31-year-old said, ‘I think obviously that we improved because usually the track is fastest in the evening but it seems to be similar to CP3 so probably the long break did something to the track I don’t know.’  He continued, ‘The first minute I tried to stay safe and I thought OK there is probably something in this and it paid out very well but shoutout to Michal as well for opening up because this not everyone would do, so thank you very much, super fair.’  Asked about tomorrow’s qualifying action, 3 rounds on the timetable, he responded with, ‘I try my best, that’s what I always do and then we will see where this leads me.’

Not surprised by his strong opening performance, the 27-year-old tipped by many as one to watch ahead of these Worlds, Sawada said his car has always been good on 5-minutes.  On his seeding in Heat 12 of 13, the former Infinity driver who made the B-Main in Bakersfield 2-years ago, explained, ‘on 3-laps it was not so fast but after the car is very consistent and easy to drive.’  Finishing 7/10ths off the TQ time, he said he should have been closer but a crash in the middle of the main straight ahead of him caused him to slow down as he didn’t know where the car had ended up and this cost him .4 or .5 of a second.  Set to make a change to his car for Q2, he is confident he can repeat the performance.

With these 13th running of the ISTC Worlds marking 22-years since he made his Worlds debut and won in Kissimmee, reacting to his opening effort Rheinard said, ‘A solid start let’s say points wise but I still struggle in the beginning a lot.’  He continued, ‘Ronald was catching, everyone was catching me.  It’s shit to see the front pulling away and the guys behind catching but I knew in the middle of the run I was going to find my pace and I did.’  He added, ‘I had some rough laps on to the straight going super wide, the car felt pretty light in the front so I could not go perfectly straight but to be on P3 is a good start.’  An issue that the German has reported all day, his car lacking pace in the opening laps of the run, asked if he was going to just work with this or try something different, he replied, ‘We are going to check.  We knew at the night time Awesomatix was going to be faster than they are in the day time so tomorrow is going to be different again until the last qualifying run.  We are going to do some more changes we’ll try tomorrow morning in the practice and hopeful find more in the beginning (of the run)’.

Summing up his P4 with ‘it was OK’, Orlowski explained, ‘I really wanted to change something on my car cause I was expecting my car to start to over rotate on corner exits towards the end of the run but I did not have the time because I was rebuilding the car for the last controlled practice.’  The 25-year-old continued, ‘and then I had issues to make the body shell fit the box (technical inspection) so I just ran out of time and said OK maybe it will be good enough but it wasn’t.’  He added, ‘but I am pretty sure I know exactly what the issue in the set-up for this grip tonight and we’ll probably try something small in the morning and I think it will be good for the rest of the race.’

Looking very pleased with his performance, Urbain said, ‘I always had the 5-minutes in me since the beginning, my 3-laps were never very strong but always there or thereabouts between Top 4, Top 5 on 5-minutes but right now I just feel ecstatic for what Simon just delivered.  Like the work those two put together not only is amazing but also played a crucial part into my program as well because I have been testing here for the last 2-weeks.  Started with a base set-up which Timmy (Tim Wahl) took over during the IPDs and whatever they implemented on the set-ups I gradually implemented on my program as well for the race and every time I did what they did I made a step forward so credit were it is due because I improved a lot due to them.’  The Frenchman added, ‘Simon is just on another level now mentally and skill wise so I am so happy.’  Asked about trying to repeat tomorrow, he replied, ‘oh no we go better.  Objective is minimum Top 5, if I can squeak myself into the Top 3 somehow, the car feels really good it’s down to me.  I had a couple of mistakes here & there so for sure I can do better.’

Coelho Top Seed in Thailand – Seeding Round 2 Update

Reigning World Champion Bruno Coelho is officially the Top Seed at the IFMAR ISTC World Championships in Thailand, the Infinity driver counting the time of his opening seeding run after a crash on just his 3rd lap of CP2 ended his run.  It would be main rival Michal Orlowski who topped the round but unable to improve his earlier time the Schumacher driver will carry the No.2 on his car for qualifying.  With the heat groupings now set based on drivers best 3-consecutive laps from the first two rounds, the third seeding run will determine how the leave the start line for the opening qualifier here at Huge RC Circuit.  With no change up front, the top improvement came from Marc Rheinard, the Xray driver managing to promote himself to 3rd but the big surprise would come from Coelho’s team-mate Viktor Wilck.  A surprise podium finisher for Serpent 10-years ago from P6 on the grid, the Swede tried a new set-up for CP2 that while he said ‘felt slow to drive’ gave him a quicker car.  He would go on to set the fourth fastest time ahead of top Awesomatix contender Simon Lauter and the impressive Antoine Brunet who is putting RC Maker in the mix – the latter 2 drivers unable to better their CP1 times.  The Top heat will be completed by Lucas Urbain, Soeren Sparber, David Ronnefalk and Ronald Volker, all four drivers getting a better 3-laps second time round.  In Stock, Oliver Bultynck kept yesterday’s momentum going again setting the fastest time in both seeding rounds to secure the No.1 race number for his Awesomatix in the top heat of the 7 groups.

Asked about CP2, Coelho replied, ‘It was a tough round, I did a mistake on the 3rd lap and the round ended there’.  On the mistake he explained, ‘They changed the layout basically.  They moved one curb, there was a painted curb and you could use it and now they decided to put there a big dot that you can’t touch.  So when you touch it now the car just flies, so I basically hit that curb.’

On his second seeding effort Orlowski, who crashed on lap 1 of the first round, said, ‘It was clean this time, I think a little slower than before so we’ll go back and try one last thing in the last one before qualifying.  Even though we went slower I think my pace was still OK.’  Chasing his first TC World title having TQ’d 2-years ago in California, he added, ‘we’ll just try and find the most speed possible for qualifying.  I feel comfortable driving around the whole 5-minutes so the set-up we are running is good.  We just need to keep up with the track changing cause I am sure it will continue changing.’  On the addition of the dot to the curb, asked if it caused him any issue. the Pole said, ‘My whole team was telling me to cut this corner more like the others but they stopped others cutting it but I still hadn’t learn to cut it and I guess I don’t have to anymore.’