Kaerup cruises to A1 win at eBuggy Worlds

Marcus Kaerup cruised to an unchallenged win in the opening A-Main of the IFMAR eBuggy World Championship in Portugal, the Team Associated driver finishing almost 6-seconds ahead of Michal Orlowski.  Leading away the 13 car field, the Top Qualifier together with Orlowski quickly gapped the chasing pack, the lack of any trackside commentary & a Wimbledon-esque ‘quiet please’ announcement at the start of the race, would set the tone for what was to follow.  While Orlowski initially looked like he might provide some entertainment in chasing down Kaerup, he would get hooked up on a pipe early on allowing the Dane to gap him.  With Kaerup getting it slightly wrong at the quad and also catching the piping as he completed his 7th lap, this was Orlowski’s opportunity and while he entered the first corner on the leader’s rear wing he couldn’t stick with the leader.  With the only other notably moment of the race being a mistake by Ongaro on lap 2 that promoted Elliott Boots and David Ronnefalk to third & fourth, the procession continued.  For the Nitro Buggy World Champion Ongaro his race would get even worse as he and Juan Carlos Canas clashed, the Italian clearly annoyed by the incident after the race.  With a mistake from Orlowski, that saw him go off the track, he rejoined ahead of Boots but the Sworkz driver never posed a threat.  In the end the British driver finish third 7/10th of a second behind Orlowski and more than 3-seconds up on Ronnefalk.

Summing up his A1 effort Kaerup said, ‘That was intense with Michal, then unfortunately he crashed and I could cruise away to the finish line.’  He continued, ‘I had to find my rhythm the first 3 or 4-minutes but once I got there I could really push on.’  Looking to A2, when he could potentially become the first ever 1:8 Electric Buggy World Champion, the 17-year-old said, ‘We’ll go with the same strategy, just keep it within the lines and drive around.’  Asked about how the track is today, the Barcelos area again experienced rain overnight, he said, ‘It’s a bit more loose, the line is very very narrow so you don’t have to go to much on the outside to lose a couple of tenths, so it is very hard.’

Asked how he felt his race went, Orlowski said, ‘It was OK.  We made a change to the car trying to give it a bit more traction but definitely my car was worse than it was yesterday during the qualifiers, and I think the track conditions are quite similar so we will go back with that and maybe adjust the car to these conditions but I am sure the track will keep developing over today.’  With Ryan Maifield, who was marshalling the A-Main, offering the Schumacher team driver some set-up advise based on what he saw the Polish driver’s buggy doing, Orlowski continued, ‘It is nice to get a second in the bag when you are really struggling to get around the track.  It wasn’t how I wanted my car to feel’.  On his mistake, when he ended up off the track, he explained, ‘I had that mistake trying to just keep up with Marcus so I am happy to get second with not a perfect run.’

‘Third is pretty solid’, that was Boots’ reaction to his race.  He added, ‘We went on probably too soft a compound, it was good at the start but then they went off and it became a bit edgy so as you could see I dropped off a bit from the other two just to survive really and bring home decent result.’   For the second encounter here at the Barcelos Buggy Arena, he said, ‘we will go up in with the compound and leave the car as it is.  It feels pretty good.  I’ll try not to get involved with everyone else’s mess and stay clean and run my own race really.  We got a 3rd as a banker so just need to back that up with another good result.

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Coelho dominates LCQ to complete WC grid

Infinity’s Bruno Coelho dominated the LCQ race to book his place in the inaugural IFMAR eBuggy World Championship final, the Portuguese driver making an early pass on pole sitter Ryan Cavalieri before quickly pulling clear to take an unchallenged win.  Not Coelho’s chosen route to tomorrow’s final at Barcelos Buggy Arena, the multiple Onroad & Offroad World Champion found himself in the B-Main after traffic delayed him in the sixth & final qualifier when he was on pace for a run that would have put him 8th on the A-Main grid.  With a stacked grid for the 10-minute LCQ, five Americans looking to somehow infiltrate the all European A-Main grid, Coelho needed just a lap to find his way to the front.  Having a moment with 4-minutes to go when he got his IFB8 E Prototype up on two wheels and had to save it, such was his lead he still managed to win by over 6-seconds from Xray’s Bartek Zalewski with Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic finishing third.  Dropping to 5th, Cavalieri maintained his status as the top US driver, on what has been a disappointing World Championships showing for the nation.

Asked about his appearance in the Last Chance Qualifier race, Coelho said, ‘We had a very tough week actually it was a lot of work we struggled a little bit with the high traction.  I mean the European Championship was amazing we finished second and it was pretty low traction  so are car was pretty good there here it was also difficult for us to find a set-up for the super high bite so today the low was good for us to improve the car.  In one of the qualifiers I made a mistake and in the last one we had a bit of trouble with the traffic when I was fighting for the Top 3 which would put me directly in the final, but now I am here.’  He added, ‘I knew I had the pace and I just need to keep calm, keep my head down and not make any mistake and it worked out.’  On the car set-up for the final, Coelho said, ‘for sure we still need sometime to work on the car, especially for me as it is a new platform.  We got it working well on the low bite but we need more time on the high bite the develop the set-up of the car and our knowledge of it.  It is work in progress for us.’

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