Orlowski resumes reign after Q2 glitch

Michal Orlowski has resumed his reign at the DHI Cup, recovering from a glitch in the second round of 4WD qualifying to take penultimate round ahead of the increasingly impressive Elias Johansson.  13-year-old Johansson has looked competitive from the start of the weekend and has looked increasingly confident at the controls of his Team Associated.  In Q2, the Swede was there to pick up the pieces when Orlowski made a set-up change that wasn’t to his liking claiming the TQ ahead of former champion Jörn Neumann. Joining Orlowski as the only driver to run 17-laps in qualifying with a P2 in the penultimate qualifier, Johansson could potential deny the Schumacher driver the TQ double and also been overshadowing his high profile fellow Swede David Ronnefalk.  A former champion in Odense, Ronnefalk finally put in a clean run in Q3 to record the third fastest time with the HB Racing driver looking more like a rookie than the double World Championship podium finisher he is.

Asked about his P5 in the second qualifier, Orlowski said, ‘we made a change and the car felt different which caused me to make a couple of mistakes.  I almost got back to the front but then had a costly mistake on the wall’.  He continued, ‘for the last one we went back to the spring from before and raised the rear camber link and the car felt even better than before. It was easier to drive’. Already Top Qualifier for the 2WD A-Main tomorrow, looking to the final qualifier the Schumacher driver said, ‘we will run a new tyre to bed them in for the finals and hopefully I can TQ.  Elias is pretty quick’.

Admitting the weekend is going better than expected, Johansson said his car continues to be really good and although he has a chance of the overall TQ its not his aim in the final qualifier.  Pleased with his run to the TQ in Q2 and then matching Orlowski’s 17-lap pace in Q3, he said ‘Michal drove really fast’ and to start in the Top 2 I am happy’.  Like Orlowski he too will run a new set of tyres in Q4 to scrub them in for the finals and so expects the car to be edgy over the opening laps.

After finding his car ‘very edgy’ in the opening qualifier, Ronnefalk reverted back to his EOS set-up but said the improvement came from his front tyre cut.  Leaving the side pins in place he glued the side wall with this making it easier to drive but crashing twice in Q2 still didn’t net a competitive time.  Knowing however he had a good car he said his approach for Q3 was to ‘drive clean and stay on the wheels’.  While he found this ‘slow’, at the end of the 5-minutes it paid dividends as he finally posted a Top 3 run.  Finding himself only 8th on the grid in 2WD, he will try to repeat Q3 and try put himself further up the 4WD grid.

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