Orlowski holds overnight TQ in Denmark

Michal Orlowski has kicked off his 2016 season perfectly with the Schumacher driver securing the provisional overnight 2WD Buggy TQ at the DHI Cup.  Having topped practice at the Danish event, the 14-year-old carried his pace into qualifying taking the opening two rounds from the Swede Niclas Mansson who sits an impressive second overnight.  Improving one place to claim P3 in the second of the four scheduled qualifiers, Joern Neumann lies third going into Day 2 followed by Xray’s Martin Bayer and Team Associated’s Joakim Nicolaisen.  Having shown promise in practice taking his D216 to the fourth fastest time, for defending champion David Ronnefalk the qualifiers would prove difficult.  Only 13th in Q1, a last lap crash in Q2 would cost the HB driver a second behind Orlowski and the Swede finds himself sitting 10th overall.

Delight with the outcome of both qualifiers, Orlowski described Q1 as a ‘crazy run’.  Over jumping the table top on the opening lap he would roll his KF2 SE making another similar mistake a few laps later.  Having ‘pushed really hard’ to try make back up the time the Polish ace would then come together with TQ pace setter Tom Cockerill, Cockerill coming off the worst of the incident when his Yokomo made contact with the drivers stand.  Giving his view of the incident he said Cockerill went outside so he went for the inside but then the former event winner crashed into him, the incident losing him a few seconds.  Able to continue, unlike Cockerill, he said he pushed hard to try get a Top 3 time but setting the fastest lap in the process he would snatch the TQ from Mansson on the last lap.  Changing to a new set of tyres for Q2, he said this resulted in a ‘really bad feeling’ from the car for the opening 3-minutes.  With the car improving as the tyres broke in, again a charge to try and make up for lost time would see the World Championship Finalist set the fastest lap as he secured another TQ run, this time the margin a much larger 2.5 seconds over Mansson.  With new tyres proving slower, for Q3 he will revert to the same set of tyres he used in Q1 as he looks to wrap up an early overall TQ.

Finishing last year’s 2WD A-Main fifth overall from 9th on the grid, Mansson said cutting tyre pins for qualifying gave his Associated B5M ‘more rotation’.  Sixth fastest in practice, the 26-year-old said his first run had one mistake but Q2 was ‘a clean run’, consistency key to today’s results.  Looking to get more steering for tomorrow’s qualifiers, he plans to raise the rear roll centre for Q3.

On target for a TQ run in Q1, Neumann described the first round as ‘unlucky’ after his battery died on the run down the straight on his last lap.  Leaving him fourth fastest, he would suffer a crash in Q2 while again on the TQ pace as he went too short on the first jump of the back section costing him 2-seconds.  Going on to post the 3rd fastest time, the Serpent driver was encouraged by the fact he was ‘a lot closer to the guys than at the EOS’ adding they now ‘have a lot more speed in the car than before’.  The Serpent driver is running a modified 4WD SX4 in 2WD which, in addition to having no front drive shafts, features a number of prototype parts allowing for a more central positioning of the motor.

A driver who has undertaken both a diet and training programme, a new for 2016 lightweight Bayer described his opening performances as ‘OK’.  The Czech driver said in Q1 it was going ‘pretty good’ until he made a four second mistake with a minute to go while in the hunt for the TQ. He said Q2 was the ‘same story. On the pace but small mistakes’.  Describing his car as ‘pretty easy to drive’ he needs to ‘cut out the mistakes’ adding that was ‘down to the driver’.  Team-mate Coelho, who finds himself in the second fastest heat holds 7th overnight behind former Top Qualifier Oscar Levin having got a P9 in Q1 and a P7 in the second round.

Giving his account of his incident with Orlowski in Q1, 2014 Champion Cockerill said ‘it was 50/50’.  ‘I was leading so I wouldn’t pull out of the way and ended up in the rostrum’.  Second fastest in practice, the Yokomo driver said Q2 was ‘better’ and while ‘the car was good’ the ‘driver was shit’.  On the TQ pace he would come up short in the back jump section losing 3-seconds to end up P5.  While his YZ-2 is ‘good’, he said he might try a different rear wing for Q3.

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Bayer fastest in 4WD at DHI Cup

Martin Bayer has set the 4WD Buggy pace on the opening day of the DHI Cup.  Despite being forced to sit out the final practice due to a servo failure, the Xray driver still managed to top the seeding list thanks to his 3-consecutive pace of the opening timed practice. Closest to the Czech ace was HB’s David Ronnefalk, the Swede improving on his opening time by a tenth of a second to get within 2/10ths of Bayer. Having set the pace in 2WD practice, Michal Orlowski would end up third fastest but the Schumacher driver was a considerable 7/10ths off the pace. For defending champion Joern Neumann, sixth would be the best the Serpent driver could manage behind Yokomo team-mates Tom Cockerill and Frederik Hovgaard.

‘Perfect’ was how Bayer summed up his XB4. Running the same set-up that he used at the opening round of the latest season of the Euro Offroad Series he said being able to run Schumacher’s Minipin tyre on the front makes this a really good set-up for the car (since its opening round the EOS has enforced the Stagger Rib as the only front tyre option for it championship).  Asked about sitting out the final practice, the former European Champion said having finished the previous practice with no problems when he put the car down for the last practice he had no steering the servo having stripped gears.  Planning no set-up changes for Q1, which for 4WD starts tomorrow, he will only fit new tyres, adding his aim is to ‘just drive around clean’ for the 5-minutes.  Asked about his opposition he replied ‘I’m still expecting Bruno (Coelho) to come’.  Only 8th fastest, World Champion Coelho said having not did any practice over the Christmas break he just needs more track time to find his rhythm.  Running a completely new car, having raced and won Round 2 of the EOS with his Worlds winning XB4, he said he was also still fine tuning his new car.  Making ‘a lot of mistakes’, the Portuguese driver said there is a lot of improvement to come.

Ronnefalk said 4WD practice ‘started out terrible’ as he need to get used running Mini Pins on the front of his D413 again and figure out right way to cut the tyres.   Describing the car as ‘always fast’, he added he just needed to adjust the set-up to make to easy to drive.  Feeling it’s now good enough for qualifying, the World Championship podium finisher will leave the car unchanged for Q1.

Orlowski said having started out with the rear shocks on his CAT K2 mounted to the rear of the shock tower, some testing of them mounted to the front by his team-mates convinced him to change resulting in the car having ‘super rotation’.  Now looking for more rear traction, the reigning European Champion will switch to a shortened rear camber link for Q1.  Having run rear tyres with the outside row of pins cut off, he will also switch to an uncut tyre for the first qualifier.

‘Average’ was Cockerill’s response to his 4WD performance.  The Brit is struggling to get a balanced set-up on his YZ-4.  With a set-up that is good in the infield, he said it leaves him struggling with his entry and exit off the main straight.  Finding a cure for that then the problem becomes the infield with the car struggling on flat landings leading it to double bounce which he said is costing time.  For Q1 he will run with the set-up that works well on the infield and just take it easier coming on and off the straight.  Team-mate Hovgaard was very happy with the performance of his YZ-4, the 16-year-old Dane making no changes over the four rounds of practice.  For Q1 he will continue with an unchanged set-up.

Chasing a fifth consecutive 4WD DHI Cup win, Neumann said part of his problem was that he broke after only 2-laps in the first timed practice forcing him to run a safe second round.  The German said while his  SX4  is not super fast on individual lap times he feels it has a ‘good 5-minute pace’.  Asked if he planned any changes for Q1 tomorrow he said his priority for now was sorting out his 2WD set-up while not far off the pace needs more steering for tonight’s two opening rounds of qualifying.

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Orlowski tops 2WD practice at DHI Cup

Michal Orlowski has topped 2WD Buggy practice at the DHI Cup, the Schumacher driver setting the fastest 3-consecutive laps at the Danish event to end up almost half a second clear of former winner Tom Cockerill.  Joakim Nicolaisen would complete the Top 3, Team Associated’s up & coming talent 3/100ths faster than defending champion David Ronnefalk.  For two time 2WD winner & unbeaten 4WD Champion Joern Neumann practice would leave the Serpent driver only 9th fastest while Xray’s 4WD World Champion Bruno Coehlo, despite laying down the fastest single lap ended up 16th.

Qualifying and finishing third in 2WD last year in Odense, Orlowski said although he came into the event prepared for low grip it was ‘even lower’ than expected.  Initially struggling for the first three practice runs, his KF2 SE ‘sliding around’, he said a switch from 15 to 10k rear diff oil together with a shortened rear camber link ‘helped a lot’ leaving the car ‘really good’ for the fourth & final practice.  Surprised that the track layout is almost identical to that of last year, the Polish ace feels he is now in good shape for qualifying which for 2WD will take place tonight following 4WD practice.

‘Pretty good’ was how 2014 winner, then driving for Schumacher, was how Cockerill summed up his practice.  Having not attended last year’s event, Yokomo’s lead driver this weekend as Lee Martin has nitro racing commitments, said while the traction was low for carpet it was nice adding it ‘should make for better racing’. Using the practice to bed in sets of the event’s Schumacher handout tyre, the only big change in terms of set-up was with shock oils as he tries to find more steering on what he described as an ‘understeer track’.  Describing the times of the leading drivers as ‘close’ he added ‘a lot of drivers are on a similar pace and there also making a lot of mistakes so my focus is more on my driving’.

Nicolaisen said his B5M, which features a Swedish made laydown gearbox, has been very good from the first run on the track.  Making only very small changes over the four rounds, the Norwegian said the track time was mostly used to scrub in tyres.  Describing the layout as having ‘a good flow’, he said as he is pretty happy with the car he will focus on his driving feeling he could clean up his lines a bit.

Making his HB team debut at the event last year, but having to race a Team C chassis in 2WD with which he TQ’d and won, Ronnefalk is now running HB’s D216.  The Swede said ‘we have done quite a lot of practice since the EOS and we now have a machined chassis rather than the rapid prototype we ran in Slovakia’.  He added ‘with not as much traction as EOS this suits the car. The speed is there. I just need to make it a little easier to drive over 5-minutes.’  Behind Ronnefalk fellow countrymen David Hassel and Niclas Mansson completed the Top 6 with Xray’s Martin Bayer 7th fastest.

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