Orlowski takes Q2, Lauter crashes out
Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has opened Day 3 of the IFMAR Electric Touring World Championship by topping the second round of qualifying while Simon Lauter who took last night’s opening qualifier crashed out having again been right in the mix. With the track proving faster this morning, 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Champion David Ronnefalk setting the fastest lap having held the top spot on the timing screen for the opening 4 laps of Q2, Orlowski bettered his opening qualifying time by 3.3-seconds and would have an advantage of almost 8/10ths over Marc Rheinard’s Xray with Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain completing the Top 3. After a troubled start to qualifying yesterday, defending World Champion Bruno Coelho would have a slightly better second effort to take P4 but the Infinity driver was by his standards along way off Orlowski, the gap 1.8-seconds. Explaining his crash that happened coming on to the main straight, a number of drivers reporting it cost them time, Lauter said, ‘I’m not sure whether it was traction roll or curb but I think just hitting the curb. I had a .8 mistake the lap before so I knew I had to make something up and that’s just what happens when you go all in all and try something. The car for sure was great again so Timmy (Tim Wahl) will check everything, fix it and we will be good for Q3.’
Summing up his TQ run Orlowski wasn’t overly happy saying, ‘I wasn’t happy with the car but at least it finished well. The track is changing so the car is changing and we need to find a solution but of course it is awesome to get a good run with a TQ and there are still many rounds to go.’ Asked about the set-up he reported running out off time to put on his car for Q1, and if he ran this today, the 1:12 World Champion said, ‘I did in the morning (free practice run) and it was better towards the end of the run because now my pace at the end was very strong.’ He added, ‘I don’t think the track is necessarily changing much anymore but we’ve gone outside of our set-up window which we found in testing and we need to come back but also remember that the layout is different and the set-up needs to be a little different.’
He seen more World Championship than most and having celebrated his 40th birthday in the lead up to the race, a very content Rheinard said, ‘What can I say I still can’t complain, having a 2 & 3 after the two opening rounds is a pretty good for me. We are still trying stuff and the car was pretty easy to drive.’ Winner of the ISTC World title 3-times, he continued, ‘I think Simon was a little bit in the lead in the beginning and then made a small mistake in the chicane so I was close but also Michal was behind me on a good pace. Then when Simon crashed I think I had to lift a little bit on the straight and don’t have the perfect line so Michal catch up a bit. When Michal made a mistake on the 3rd or 4th last lap I thought I should take it more easy but I took it too easy.’ He explained, ‘You know if you don’t push the car like before then you go slow so I went from 13.6 & 7 the last laps to 14.0 and a 13.9 when he was still doing a 13.6. It was close.’ For the next one the German said, ‘maybe some small changes and try just to make another good run. Then maybe try something bigger for the other rounds. I mean I am happy so far so it is all good.’
Urbain was very upbeat about his Q2 and is a driver who is the clearly in the high confidence zone, declaring this is ‘one of the best cars I have ever driven anywhere, on one of the best layouts & facilities I have ever attended. It is a blast to drive and I am having a tone of fun’. On his performance, the French Champion said, ‘I’m very happy with that, as I said yesterday I knew there was more in the car.’ He continued, ‘It felt however too easy on that run. Similar to yesterday I lost the front end towards the 3-minute mark and saw Michal in front of me pull away. I lifted more than the other guys in the straight when Simon had the mistake. I heard initially go low and then I heard some sounds around it, it could be the car was still drifting on the line, so I lifted off but anyway I would not have challenged Marc anyway.’ For Q3 he said, ‘I need slightly more steering, could be a very little stupid change, just minor, cause the car is obviously very good. I don’t expect the track to change much, so reset and go again.’
Reacting to his run, Coelho said, ‘It was a tough round, I start pretty OK, then I start in the middle of the run to feel like the tyres are overheating and then I just try to save the run to the end and try to make some points as yesterday was not a good run. Not the place we expected for sure.’ Asked about ideas for set-up changes for the next round, the Portuguese driver replied, ‘for sure we always have ideas but we are running out of time basically. For sure we will change things for the next one.’