Rheinard wins A1 after Coelho-Orlowski contact
Awesomatix’s Marc Rheinard has taken the opening A-Main at the Electric Touring Car World Championship, the 3-time ISTC World Champion capitalising on contact between defending champion Bruno Coelho and Top Qualifier Michal Orlowski. With the Top 2 initially pulling clear, as they scrapped over the lead Rheinard closed in to make way it a three way flight of RC titans, the closeness of the action generating plenty of ‘ooohs’ from the onlooking crowd. Having got alongside leader Orlowski a number of times, Coelho would attempt a pass in the corner coming on to the main straight but contact was made with Orlowski ending up in the corner with a body tuck as Rheinard slipped through unscathed for a comfortable lead he will hold to the finish ahead Ronald Volker and Akio Sobue with Coelho finishing back in fourth. Orlowski would finish P8, his car suffering damaged in the incident.
‘I couldn’t ask more’, was Rheinard reaction on taking A1. The reigning European Champion said, ‘I knew something was going to happen up front so when I could get by Ronald I could see that my pace was actually really good. I tried to show them I am there so they don’t have breathing room so I tried to get close to Bruno and then also backed off a bit cause I saw they were fighting, but still not too far away from him. Then, actually I don’t know what happened, but they contacted and I went through and from this moment I tried to control it.’ On his car’s performance today, he said, ‘I made two small changes and it seems it works better now but maybe also the 1-hour break (no track action) made it better for us and definitely the heat’.
Asked about his race, Coelho replied, ‘The car was I think finally very good. I was able to keep up with Michal, I was trying to go all around like inside, outside, but over here I need to watch the reply, I don’t really know what happened, if is 100% my fault or not. I think I touched him on the side and not really from the rear so for me I think he was a bit wide but as I said I need to watch the replay. The result was looking very good but in the end it was a disaster.’
Asked for his reaction to the race Orlowski’s reaction was brief, ‘My chassis is broken now so that’s pretty much it. We now need to fix it, that’s it’.
In Spec, there was no problems for Top Qualifier Simon Lauter, the Awesomatix driver easily pulling clear of the field to take a very comfortable win over the Xray of 5th place starter Matus Benetin. Any early mistake from second place starter Max Mächler caused some the field issues on the main straight but the 1:12 Spec World Champion recovered to P3 helped by Benetin’s pass on Jan Ratheisky cause the German a body tuck that ended his challenge.
