Orlowski holds overnight TQ in Denmark
Michal Orlowski has kicked off his 2016 season perfectly with the Schumacher driver securing the provisional overnight 2WD Buggy TQ at the DHI Cup. Having topped practice at the Danish event, the 14-year-old carried his pace into qualifying taking the opening two rounds from the Swede Niclas Mansson who sits an impressive second overnight. Improving one place to claim P3 in the second of the four scheduled qualifiers, Joern Neumann lies third going into Day 2 followed by Xray’s Martin Bayer and Team Associated’s Joakim Nicolaisen. Having shown promise in practice taking his D216 to the fourth fastest time, for defending champion David Ronnefalk the qualifiers would prove difficult. Only 13th in Q1, a last lap crash in Q2 would cost the HB driver a second behind Orlowski and the Swede finds himself sitting 10th overall.
Delight with the outcome of both qualifiers, Orlowski described Q1 as a ‘crazy run’. Over jumping the table top on the opening lap he would roll his KF2 SE making another similar mistake a few laps later. Having ‘pushed really hard’ to try make back up the time the Polish ace would then come together with TQ pace setter Tom Cockerill, Cockerill coming off the worst of the incident when his Yokomo made contact with the drivers stand. Giving his view of the incident he said Cockerill went outside so he went for the inside but then the former event winner crashed into him, the incident losing him a few seconds. Able to continue, unlike Cockerill, he said he pushed hard to try get a Top 3 time but setting the fastest lap in the process he would snatch the TQ from Mansson on the last lap. Changing to a new set of tyres for Q2, he said this resulted in a ‘really bad feeling’ from the car for the opening 3-minutes. With the car improving as the tyres broke in, again a charge to try and make up for lost time would see the World Championship Finalist set the fastest lap as he secured another TQ run, this time the margin a much larger 2.5 seconds over Mansson. With new tyres proving slower, for Q3 he will revert to the same set of tyres he used in Q1 as he looks to wrap up an early overall TQ.
Finishing last year’s 2WD A-Main fifth overall from 9th on the grid, Mansson said cutting tyre pins for qualifying gave his Associated B5M ‘more rotation’. Sixth fastest in practice, the 26-year-old said his first run had one mistake but Q2 was ‘a clean run’, consistency key to today’s results. Looking to get more steering for tomorrow’s qualifiers, he plans to raise the rear roll centre for Q3.
On target for a TQ run in Q1, Neumann described the first round as ‘unlucky’ after his battery died on the run down the straight on his last lap. Leaving him fourth fastest, he would suffer a crash in Q2 while again on the TQ pace as he went too short on the first jump of the back section costing him 2-seconds. Going on to post the 3rd fastest time, the Serpent driver was encouraged by the fact he was ‘a lot closer to the guys than at the EOS’ adding they now ‘have a lot more speed in the car than before’. The Serpent driver is running a modified 4WD SX4 in 2WD which, in addition to having no front drive shafts, features a number of prototype parts allowing for a more central positioning of the motor.
A driver who has undertaken both a diet and training programme, a new for 2016 lightweight Bayer described his opening performances as ‘OK’. The Czech driver said in Q1 it was going ‘pretty good’ until he made a four second mistake with a minute to go while in the hunt for the TQ. He said Q2 was the ‘same story. On the pace but small mistakes’. Describing his car as ‘pretty easy to drive’ he needs to ‘cut out the mistakes’ adding that was ‘down to the driver’. Team-mate Coelho, who finds himself in the second fastest heat holds 7th overnight behind former Top Qualifier Oscar Levin having got a P9 in Q1 and a P7 in the second round.
Giving his account of his incident with Orlowski in Q1, 2014 Champion Cockerill said ‘it was 50/50’. ‘I was leading so I wouldn’t pull out of the way and ended up in the rostrum’. Second fastest in practice, the Yokomo driver said Q2 was ‘better’ and while ‘the car was good’ the ‘driver was shit’. On the TQ pace he would come up short in the back jump section losing 3-seconds to end up P5. While his YZ-2 is ‘good’, he said he might try a different rear wing for Q3.
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