Orlowski closes gap as Coelho tops 1st seeding round in Bangkok
Michal Orlowski has closed the gap to defending World Champion Bruno Coelho, the Schumacher driver looking now looking like he has the best 5-minute car around the Huge RC Circuit here in Bangkok as Day 2 of IFMAR ISTC World Championships gets underway. With Coelho’s Infinity cars topping all 5 practice rounds yesterday, switching to running just a single white body shelled car in the opening seeding round this morning, while he topped the 3-laps just from Orlowski, it was Awesomatix’s Simon Lauter with the fastest complete run however take out a first lap crash by Orlowski and it looks like the Pole has the edge with just two more practice runs to go before the day ends with the opening qualifier. Suffering a big crash on the first lap, giving him a lap 23-second lap time, almost 10-seconds off his fastest lap, he would finish 7-seconds off the pace of Lauter who was 0.29 up on Coelho. Over 3-laps Orlowski was just 0.063 off Coelho’s time, a massive reduction on the 6/10ths advantage the Portugese driver had yesterday. With the official ranking for the first seeding round Coelho from Orlowski from Lauter, we would see another strong showing from RC Maker’s Antoine Brunet who set the fourth fastest time ahead of the Xray’s of Marc Rheinard and David Ronnefalk, the newly crowned 2-time 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Champion having a good showing on what is only his second ISTC Worlds appearance.
With a clear confidence in his step after the run, Orlowski explained, ‘It wasn’t a good start as I destroyed the car on the sweeper but luckily the bodyshell was OK and the car was working fine.’ He added, ‘we made very big changes for this run so the car felt a lot different in a very good way and after that crash I did a very nice run so everything is good.’ The 25-year-old reigning 1:12 World Champion said, ‘We will make some small changes, maybe now a little bit risky because the 3-laps is already quite fast to seed in the top heat so maybe now a more risky change and see if we can find even more speed for qualifying.’
Reacting to yet another run at the top of the timing screens, Coelho said, ‘It was nice to make the 5-minute pace, which was positive’. Asked if we was happy with his 5-minute pace, the 3-time back to back Champion replied with a not so confident sounding, ‘It’s OK’ going on to say, ‘for sure it is much better on 3-laps than 5-minutes but still it’s a long race.’ On track conditions, and one of the driver who tested here extensively ahead of event, he said, ‘it feels a bit more grippy today, different but more grippy I think. For sure we are going to make little changes on the car to try make it a little more stable through the 5-minutes.’
‘It went quite well but it is still impressive to see the first laps of the fast guys or the legends, however you want to call them’, was Lauter’s reaction after CP1. He continued, ‘It seems apparent they have the upper hand in the first 1-minute but in the end it is all about 5-minutes pace and I think we were not too bad. Still something to find for sure but its open. I think it’s a group of 5 or 6 guys that can do similar 5-minutes pace so for sure it will be a close one.’ The reigning Stock World Champion added, ‘everyone is trying to improve and we’ll try to improve the most.’ Asked what that something he need to find was, he replied, ‘that’s always a hard question. We were discussing that because we have different opinions. Driving wise it felt different to what Tim (Wahl) saw from down under the rostrum. I think the most basic answer is finding more corner speed would be helpful but this is also the task that is endless and everyone has.’
Asked how he felt the first seeding run had gone, Brunet replied, ‘Pretty good.’ The Frenchman explained, ‘We found some pace in the overall 5-minutes, only the 3-laps was not good’. Asked what the issue was at the end of the run, the 29-year-old said, ‘I am not confident with my driving in the last minute because the car is a bit snappy and then I have understeer so I need to improve that for CP2.’ On track conditions he said, ‘I feel a bit more grip now. The patches (of track) that was not used for 1-year is now with more rubber which is good as the track is more consistent. We will make just small changes only for the pace not for the speed, I think the speed is here now and we need to make the end of the 5-minutes in good condition.’
Rheinard summed up his run to P5 with, ‘I struggled a bit in the beginning driving wise and I didn’t have the grip so they pulled away.’ The German continued, ‘In the middle of the run I caught up to Bruno again and then I made a small mistake in the end. My overall time is OK but when I see Michal, I think Michal on the 5-minutes now was really fast in this run even though he had a mistake on the first lap.’ He added, ‘So it seems now on the 5-minutes Michal is the quickest this round be we are going to adjust some things and hope to improve a bit more for the next one.’ Asked about his slow start to the run, the 3-time World Champion replied, ‘I don’t know. Maybe I overshot here & there but I don’t feel like I have the bite from the beginning. Like Bruno starts crazy fast. I think that’s his car, I saw he used a different chassis than expected so maybe he has some advantage in the beginning but to the end I think it’s not a big difference.’