Orlowski cruises to easy A1 win at TITC
While Michal Orlowski starting on the TQ directly in front of Bruno Coelho has produced fireworks in the past, the opening A-Main at the TITC in Bangkok proved a total procession as the Schumacher driver took an easy & dominant win over his rival. Sending a clear message to his rivals on his TITC debut by topping all four rounds of qualifying at RC Addict, Orlowski looked even stronger in A1 quickly pulling clear of the field to win a massive 3.3-second margin. While Coelho’s Infinity would record the fastest lap of the race, the defending Champion was never a threat to the rookie. Instead a small mistake left Coelho having to fend off a challenge from Marc Rheinard but that battle faded away with the Awesomatix driver, who before a driver error looked to have found something in the final qualifier, crossing the line almost a 1-second back in P3.
Putting it to Orlowski after the race that his win was pretty straight forward and uneventful, the Pole replied, ‘Yeah, I’ve been sick off not being able to have a clean run in the finals so before A1 I thought I’m just going to try and pull away and my car was absolutely perfect in this one’. He continued, ‘I did all I could to drive away and thanks to the help of Mattia (Collina), the guys from Elceram, Pekko, JQ, yeah the the car was perfect. Now I just need one more.’ With the night to sleep on his A1 win asked about A2 he said, ‘we will see what time the race is at, we’ll see the temperatures, but I think we will leave the car the same.’
Reacting to his first actual race as an Infinity driver, Coelho said, ‘We made some radical changes on the set-up and it didn’t really go the direction we want but we are still learning the car. The performance is there and I think considering we only got the car in our hands for the first time 3-weeks ago and we are flighting for the TITC, so the result is impressive. The competition is at 110% because they have the same car and they have everything the same as they had at the World Championship. We still have a lot to learn and a lot to improve on the car so I am really happy with the result and just enjoying the moment. Asked about his moment during the final, he explained, ‘I was trying to follow Michal who is super strong this weekend and I touched the curb and was on two wheels’. Surviving the moment that allowed Rheinard to hassle him for a few laps, he added, ‘as I said before the race we need to be realistic for this race, we are not 100% ready, we are getting there, so second place and fighting for the TITC is already good.’
A dejected Rheinard, clearly at a loss to his disappointing A1 performance having had high expectation after his initial Q4 effort one & a half hours earlier, said. ‘I don’t know the traction is so much so I just kept the car the same as Q4 where I was leading until I made a mistake but now it was again really difficult to drive. I have no idea, changing track conditions are a bit weird for us, it doesn’t work out.’ The reigning European Touring Car Champion added, ‘Also Bruno was struggling there, it just felt super weird and hard to drive. It might have been a boring race to watch but to drive it was super difficult. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.’
In the opening encounter of Open Brushless it was also a tone to tone win for the Top Qualifier as Mugen Seiki’s Soren Sparbier converted to take the win with his MTC-3. After an early incident allowed the Top 2 to break clear of the field, the No.2 starting Awesomatix of Lukas Ellerbrock kept Sparbier honest for race as he posted a slightly faster fastest lap of the race than his fellow countryman. Starting P3 that is where Olivier Bultynck would finish but loosing time in the Lap 3 incident the Q2 winner was almost half a lap back on the Top 2.
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