Coelho grabs Q4 at TITC, all to play for in final qualifier

Bruno Coelho has grabbed a TQ run in the penultimate round of qualifying at the TITC, the Infinity driver ending the dominance of defending Champion Michal Orlowski at the Bangkok classic.  With the heats reseeded for Day 2 of qualifying, it was Orlowski who took all three of yesterday’s qualifiers who led away followed by Coelho and new to the top heat Akio Sobue.  With it looking like it was going to be more of the same from Orlowski once things settled down, a super strong finish from Coelho would see the World Champion grab the TQ by 16/100ths of a second from his biggest touring car rival – the large crowd showing their appreciation for the run in anticipation of the showdown his performance has created for the ‘Happy Hour’ final qualifier.  Putting together some impressive runs from the second fastest heat yesterday, joining the top heat Sobue would improve his counting runs by setting the third fastest time ahead of Awesomatix pairing Marc Rheinard and Simon Lauter.  In Open Brushless we would see the potential for a qualifying clean sweep also disappear.  Having made a slow start to the heat, overnight TQ holder Lukas Ellerbrock would get caught up in another drivers incident and end up with an 18.4-second lap, his fastest of the run being a 14.862.  Up front it was Thai Xray driver Natthawat Rungcharat who took the round TQ ahead of the Awesomatix’s Olivier Bultynck and Xpress’ Mongkolphan Lomrose.

Reacting to his run, that has injected a bit of excitement into the 22nd running of the TITC, Coelho said, ‘It was pretty intense, it was a good qualifier.’  He explained, ‘I had very small bobbles on the run but like very little which was good I got more confidence during the run and through the mid to the end of the run I was able to force a little but more and capitalise from that.’  Looking to the fifth & final qualifier, the TQ honours a straight up fight between himself and Orlowski, the 4-time TITC Champion said, ‘Everything is open.  We are going to make some small changes to try to improve the car for the cooler conditions and we will see.’

‘It was OK.  A late start to the day so it was very interesting to see what the track was like’, was how Orlowski summed up his time first not being at the top of the timings.’  On his car the Schumacher driver said, ‘The car felt OK but I had loads of understeer compared to before but still I had quite nice grip so I also had good pace but just a few small bobble at the end because I lost a lot of steering and Bruno could get it.’  He continued, ‘The most important thing is to have the best car tomorrow which is super difficult to predict because the car changes a lot run to run, so it is either the tyre or the track conditions but you can see guys are running half second a lap slower from run to run so it’s very inconsistent.  For the last one I think the car will be good, I am just not sure if we need to make a change to get more steering or whether the track will have steering itself.’

Summing up his second Top 3 run of qualifying, 2-time Champion Sobue said, ‘The car pace and performance are very good and it was also super easy to drive.’  Moved up to the top heat for the final two rounds, the Axon driver added, ‘I tried catching the front guys, Bruno and Michal, but I used the tyres too much in the beginning.  The first 2-minutes I used them too much and then for the last 2-minutes it was a bit difficult as it was a little bit loose and pushing so I had a gap of about 2-seconds on the front guys but I am happy to get P3 in these conditions.’  The Japanese driver concluded, ‘Q5 for sure will be high bite but I will try my best.’

Asked to sum up his Q4 performance, Rheinard replied, ‘I don’t know, its still bad.  P4 doesn’t help so I am still 5th overall.’  He continued, ‘the car is always doing different things.  Now it was understeering and all over the place.  It was good for one lap and then it just started to push especially at the end of the straight, I had to go full lock almost.  I really don’t know whether the track changed too much and it doesn’t suit my car, it’s just really, really hard but let’s see Happy Hour, it would be nice to get 1-2 spots up with a good run in the last one.  But I think I need to TQ to beat Akio but at least I try to beat Simon but so far no confidence.’

Asked about reseeding to the top heat, Lauter said it was a big advantage explaining, ‘you know what is going on.  For example I knew that I had to push to stay ahead of Marc or get back ahead of him which ultimately led me to making a mistake but at least I knew what was going on.’  In terms of his car, the Spec Touring Car World Champion said, ‘I kept my set-up from yesterday.  I did not do many laps yesterday because I had a big mistake but the car felt very good.  We anticipated less grip conditions because of the big photo and everything going on on track and this is what happened.’  The German concluded, ‘I am unsure what to do for the last one because I think traction rolling with be a big big thing and with the big showdown going on in front it is quite important to stay on track and get good points.’