Coelho is Top Qualifier in China

Bruno Coelho is Top Qualifier for the Electric Touring Car World Championships.  The Xray driver, who burst onto the scene at the last World Championship two years ago in the US, secured pole position in Beijing with a fourth TQ run in the penultimate qualifier.  With only Ronald Volker able to deny the 2014 Vice Champion the overall TQ, just half a lap into the fifth round the Yokomo driver’s challenge was done as he suffered a driveshaft failure but Coelho wanted it on merit and did so with a new fastest 5-minute pace.  Behind Alexander Hagberg would make it an Xray 1-2 with Jilles Groskamp completing the Top 3 from Marc Rheinard.  Unfortunately for current World Champion Naoto Matsukura, who had the high of winning a fourth 1:12 World title earlier in the week, his touring car campaign hasn’t improved and the Japanese driver will not be defending his title as with just one more qualifier to run he is ranked 19th overall.

‘This means nothing’ was Coelho’s reaction to becoming Top Qualifier.  He continued, ‘it is just 40% of the race.  For sure to start first is an advantage but its the three races tomorrow that will decide the winner’.  Winner of the 4WD Offroad World title having TQ’d in Japan, the multi discipline champion said, ‘the car works, the electric are perfect even though its super hot so it will be me that will decide it’.

With Coelho’s TQ run securing him second on the grid behind the ETS Champion, Volker said, ‘I knew I had to TQ to stay in contention but the drive shaft broke so while its disappointing one positive is the Bruno’s TQ locks up P2 for me’.  Having changed the set-up on the prototype of the new BD8 platform, he said the loss of track time meant they didn’t get to run the set-up to see if it works.  With Q6 now a testing opportunity, he said they need to get a better balance for the second half of the 5-minutes if he is to be able to challenge Coelho for the win.

Finishing almost 4-seconds back on his team-mate,  Hagberg said afterwards, ‘I have a big electronics problem’.  Suffering similar issues in Q4, the former nitro touring car World Champion said this time round they cost him about 2-seconds.  Despite the evening’s Q5 being the coolest temperatures of the day, he said ‘the speedo & motor are getting too hot and its fading bad at the end’.  While sitting third in the overnight standings, he is just one point up in Akio Sobue so needs to try protect that in the morning’s final qualifier.

‘For sure the pace is finally there, well not to Bruno’, that was how Groskamp summed up a competitive Q5 performance.  Having to nervously wait after the run to find out if he would lose the time due to an issue with the weight of his Xray, the Team Infinity drivers said, ‘the car was already better in the previous round after we change the power settings and roll centre which gave good steering and more traction but now it was the perfect run’.  The 2012 World Champion continued, ‘I was behind Marc (Rheinard) all the time but my car was stable to the end’.  Beating his former team-mate by 0.004 he said ‘I’m really with the result’.

Also Rheinard’s best round, the long time Tamiya driver said, ‘we changed diffs, shocks, everything but it was still the same as before, it drops off to much.’  Having lost his 1:12 World title on Monday, he continued, ‘unlucky to be 4/100th off Jilles and 4/10th off Alex but Bruno is some reason in a different World’.  The 3-time Champion concluded, ‘to be 4-second ahead of your team-mate shows he definitely has something extra’.  Behind Rheinard, Yokomo rising talent Naoki Akiyama posted the 5th fastest time ahead of fellow Yokomo youngster Ryouske Yamamoto.  Christopher Krapp would get seventh as Andy Moore after a mistake in Q4 resumed his spot with a fourth run to the 8th fastest time.

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Volker capitalises to take Q3 at WC

Ronald Volker has TQ’ the third round of qualifying, the Yokomo driver capitalising on a number of mistakes from Q1 & 2 pace setter Bruno Ceolho.  Running in the second fastest heat at the World Championships, Akio Sobue would set the benchmark for the top heat with an impressive time which Volker would just manage to better, his advantage over the 5-minutes only 0.095 of a second.  For Coelho, who ran a slower time than Q2 while everyone else went faster, the round would give the Xray driver a P3 ahead of team-mate Alexander Hagberg.  Having struggled in the opening two qualifiers just scraping Top 10 times, Q3 would be a big step forward for Marc Rheinard as he posted the fifth fastest time the gap to the TQ pace down from over 5 to 1.8-seconds.

While Volker declared ‘it’s a perfect result’ he conceded, ‘I definitely took benefit from the mistakes Bruno made’.  Running Yokomo’s new BD8, he continued ‘but overall we are now closer (to Coelho)’.  Making a shock change this made it ‘a bit better’ but it is ‘still not where we want to have the car’.  Describing the current set-up as ‘a little too difficult to drive’ he said they will try to improve that for the second half of qualifying, 2 of the remaining 3 qualifiers still to be run today in Beijing.  Shadowing Coelho over the run, setting the fastest lap of the round, Volker said while he could see he was faster than Coelho he knew he needed to keep pushing for a good time to beat Sobue and while close it ‘paid off’.

‘The car was super good but I one time spin on the first lap’, was how Sobue summed up his qualifier.  Spinning in the chicane on the left side of the track, the Japanese ace said, ‘I touched the curb, my mistake’ adding ‘with no mistake I take TQ’.  Having struggled with tyre drop off in the previous heat on his way to a P5 time, a shock change had given the car ‘better consistency’ over the qualifier.  Happy with the shocks after the change and planning to leave them as is for Q4, the 1:12 World Championship podium finisher plans to make ‘a very small adjustment’ to another element of the car opting to not divulge what that would be.

Coelho gave a very simple explanation for not topping the times saying, ‘Three mistakes on three consecutive laps’.  The reigning electric offroad World Champion said, ‘after the first mistake I tried to make back the time and made another mistake and then trying to make up for them both I made a third one’.  Putting his mistakes aside he said, ‘the car is there, I was leading comfortably’.  Hagberg described his P4 as ‘another solid run’.  The 2014 Finalist added, ‘I lost too much time at the beginning again so we will make a set-up change to try improve the pace at the start’.

Running a different diff, Rheinard said while it was ‘a little better. It is still not great’.  He continued, ‘for sure there is a lot of difference in the tyres’, adding ‘look at Viktor, right up there in the first two and now nowhere’.  Getting a P20, Wilck himself felt his drop off was down to tyres saying the set was good yesterday in controlled practice but not good for the qualifier.  Designated a used tyres round of qualifying, the 2004/8/10 World Champion said his TRF419X ‘starts good but then doesn’t feel to have a lot of bite’.  Asked if he planned any car changes for Q4 he said, ‘to be honest I don’t know, I hope for new tyres’.   Behind Rheinard, Yokomo’s Nicolas Lee again completed the Top 6 ahead of Capricorn’s Marc Fischer, Team Infinity’s Andy Moore,  Yokomo young gun Naoki Akiyama and the Tamiya of Christopher Krapp.

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Coelho again in Q2

Having concluded yesterday’s action by taking the opening round of qualifying, Bruno Coelho continues to be the man to beat at the Electric Touring Car World Championships in China. With four rounds of qualifying on today’s schedule, the Xray driver opened the third day of the event with a second TQ run again having the edge over Yokomo Ronald Volker.  With Volker setting the early pace, it’s a blue sky sunny morning in Beijing, Coelho would put in a strong second half to top the times by 1.4 seconds.  Behind them Alexander Hagberg would complete the Top 3, the Swede getting ahead of Q1 P3 finisher Viktor Wilck.

‘A good start to the day’ was Coelho’s reaction afterwards but the Portuguese ace was less impressed by his own start to the qualifier.  He said, ‘the first three laps I had some mistakes as I forced a little too much’ adding it is ‘harder’ today as ‘the track is super hot’.  Commenting that pushing too hard early on will leave you struggling with the tyres by the end, he said as his driving improved he was able to make back the time he lost early, adding his T4 ‘was ok to the end’.  Leaving his car unchanged despite the much warmer conditions compared to the evening time Q1,  he plans to again keep it the same for Q3.

Volker summed his second qualifier as ‘a similar story to yesterday’.  ‘Matching Bruno’ and ‘probably a little ahead’ over the first two & a half minutes, the German said ‘half way through I start to loose overall grip’.  Making a set-up change after Q1, he said while it was better it left his new BD8 ‘difficult but fast’ and with drop off still a problem they ‘definitely need more set-up changes’.  He concluded, ‘P2 is OK but I want more’.

Having reported a drop off in motor power after his P4 time in Q1, Hagberg said, ‘we solved the motor problem and I had consistent power for the whole run’.  With a new motor the solution to the problem,  the Xray driver felt there is further improvement to come from his driving.  Finishing little over a second off Volker, the former European Champion said, ‘I was driving too cautiously at the start which lost me time’.

With the P3 and P4 order the reverse in Q1, the drivers appear to have also swapped issues. Losing out to fellow countryman Hagberg in the second half of the qualifier, Wilck reported a motor problem for Q2.  Declaring it an ‘ok’ run, the Serpent driver added, ‘my motor slowed down too much the last minute’.  Having lacked power due to a conservative speedo setting yesterday, turning up the power setting this morning he said while ‘a little better’ it was ‘still slow’.  Feeling the hot track temperature may have been a factor, talking to 4X designer David Ehrbar, he will fit a new motor and also gear up for Q3.

Going one better than Q1 to post the 5th fastest time, Akio Sobue would be the top Tamiya for the second qualifier. With team-mates Marc Rheinard and Christopher Krapp P9 & 10 behind former Champion Andy Moore, the Japanese said changes to his TRF419X had improved the car over the first 2-minutes but he had a big drop off.  The 22-year-old said, ‘I can’t save the tyres so we will make a small change to try and get it more consistent (over the 5-minutes)’.

With Yokomo using these World Championship to launch their new BD8 platform, running prototypes of the upcoming kit release, Nicolas Lee put his example in the Top 6 ahead of team-mate Loic Jasmin.   P7 in the opening round when a diff bearing issue left the belt tension loose, the Singapore driver ‘just fixed that’ and ran the set-up unchanged for Q2.  Saying the ‘car is good’ he added ‘I just need to drive better’.  Running a P4 pace in the top heat, the 25-year-old said he ‘got a little nervous’ causing him to drop a little off the pace.

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