Coelho & Ronnefalk set for TQ battle final qualifier

Bruno Coelho and David Ronnefalk are set to battle it out for the overall 4WD Buggy TQ at the DHI Cup.  With Coelho taking the opening qualifier, in Q2 it was Ronnefalk who took Q2.  In the third round Ronnefalk looked to repeat until with three laps to go the HB driver would loose his rhythm as he passed Martin Bayer and crash.  Having been in hot pursuit of his rival this would allow Coelho to post a second TQ run, this time ahead of European Champion Michal Orlowski.  With defending champion Joern Neumann completing the Top 3, Ronnefalk would end up with a P6 behind Bayer and Yokomo young charger Frederik Hovgaard.  The result means now only Ronnefalk can deny World Champion Coelho from making his DHI Cup race debut as Top Qualifier, the Portuguese driver having the advantage of holding the fastest TQ time putting all the pressure on his Swedish rival for Q4.

After ‘mistakes, a lot of them’ in Q2, Coelho said things in the driver’s department were much better with just one mistake in Q3.  Describing his LRP powered XB4 as ‘perfect’, the only problem was ‘some loose screws’ with it discovered afterwards the motor mounting able to move around freely in the car.  Acknowledging luck was on his side to have completed the run trouble free, other than have it screwed tightly in place for the final qualifier he will leave the car unchanged as he is very happy with the EOS set-up he put on it after practice.

Commenting on his Q2 TQ, Ronnefalk said ‘it was a good run, no mistakes, the car felt good and with Bruno having a lot of mistakes it was an easy TQ’.  Switching from a Proline to a JConcepts body for Q3 as well as adding a aero flap to the front shock tower he said this resulted in more steering. He said the run started to go wrong when he caught Bayer.  Opening up to let him passed the 20-year-old said after that he didn’t know what the Czech driver was thinking as he tried o come back at him almost taking him out.  ‘I lost momentum’ as a result of the contact leading him to case the back double allowing Coelho to go to the top of the timing screens, with future mistakes dropping him back down the order.  Planning just new tyres for the deciding qualifier he said ‘I’m looking for another TQ in the last one’.

Improving his result with each run, starting out with a P5 in first round and third in Q2, Orlowski said raising the camber links on his Schumacher for Q3 had given the car better balance but he struggled with tyres. Running the same set of handout Schumacher Mini Pins for a third time he said it was too much.  Describing it as a ‘good run (with) no mistakes’, the Pole said with new tyres for the next one he should be more competitive having been 3.5-seconds off Coelho’s pace.

Getting a better than expected P2 in Q2, Neumann said cutting an extra row of pins off his front tyres and moving the shocks to the outside hole on the arm ‘the car pushed way more than before’.  The unbeaten 4WD DHI Cup Champion of the last four years, this the fifth running of offroad at the event, the Serpent driver will revert to his Q2 set-up for the last qualifier.

Behind Neumann, Demark’s Hovgaard continued his impressive showing as the leading Yokomo contender, 2WD Top Qualifier Tom  Cockerill struggling in 4WD.  The 17-year-old hasn’t changed his YZ-4 over qualifying declaring himself happy with both its and his own performance with him getting a 5th in Q2 which he backed up with a P4 in the latest round.

View the event image gallery here.

World Champ Coelho takes opening 4WD qualifier

World Champion Bruno Coelho has taken the opening round of 4WD Buggy qualifying at the DHI Cup. Making his debut at the event, the Portuguese ace headed an Xray 1-2 from Martin Bayer with HB’s David Ronnefalk completing the Top 3.  For reigning champion Joern Neumann he would open his quest for a fifth consecutive title with 4th.  Having battled it out for pole in 2WD, Michal Orlowski would get a P5 from the first of the four qualifiers with eventual 2WD Top Qualifier Tom Cockerill completing the Top 6.

Only 8th fastest in practice yesterday, Coelho said a switch to his EOS Round 2 winning set-up for qualifying was a big improvement.  With his XB4  flipping a lot in practice and having ‘not so much steering’, he said the set-up change had made it ‘easier to drive’, added ‘more steering’ and the buggy now ‘doesn’t flip’.  After some little mistakes early on in the heat, Coelho said he was able to push hard and make back the time.  Setting the fastest lap which was over a 1/10th up on that next best time which was set by Ronnefalk, he said with the car now very good he would leave it unchanged.  Looking across at his team-mate he joked, ‘I beat Bayer so I’m super happy’, the pair always keen to add a bit of humour to proceedings with friendly banter aimed at each other.

In response Bayer said ‘as I said yesterday expected Bruno to come’.  Fastest in practice, the former European Champion said the result was ‘how it should be with Bruno fastest so I am happy’.  The lead development driver for the XB4, he said ‘the car is comfortable on the track so its all good’.  Continuing, he said the ‘car is good its just on me to drive it’.

Describing his run as ‘OK’ , Ronnefalk added ‘after the disaster in 2WD it was nice to run 4WD again’.  The 20-year-old said with a lot more traction today his Orion powered D413 was ‘oversteering a lot’ and he had to make adjustments on the track.  In terms of the qualifier he said ‘I had a rough first few laps and didn’t hit my lines which led to a crash’.  With the change in track conditions for Q2 he will run a different cut on the front tyres as well as making some rear end set-up changes.

‘OK, I think 4th was the maximum I could achieve’, was how Neumann summed up his opening performance.  The factory Serpent driver continued the ‘speed is not there’.  Describing his SX4 as a little difficult the German said the problem is how the car is landing and this is losing time.  With Serpent’s 1:10 designer and Neumann’s long time engineer Gerd Strenge on hand to support his driver, Neumann said ‘we know what we need to change and we will have this for the next EOS race’, the third round taking place  in Germany later this month.  With one crash he said maybe 3rd is possible in Q2 but his body language was that his unbeaten reign as DHI Cup Champion was looking like a mammoth task to maintain.

View the event image gallery here.

Cockerill is 2WD Top Qualifier at DHI Cup

After a poor first day of qualifying at the DHI Cup, former Champion Tom Cockerill turned things around today to claim his first overall TQ at the Danish event.  A DNF in Q1 and only 5th in Q2, the Yokomo driver upped his game for the final two qualifiers to snatch the pole position for the A-Main from early dominator Michal Orlowski.  Matching Orlowski’s two TQ runs it was Cockerill’s times that would give the British driver the tie breaker to claim the honour of Top Qualifier in this the fifth year offroad has been part of the DHI Cup.

Commenting on his Q4 performance and having started the previous heats from the back of the pack, Cockerill said, ‘I was up the grid this time and in the pack from the beginning.  Once Orlowski crashed I then knew I just had to stick with him’.  Changing on to a different set of tyres for the final qualifier he said his YZ-2 was ‘good’ but the ‘final’s a different game’ he will make a couple of changes to the set-up.  Looking to make the car ‘more racey’, the World Championship finalist plans to raise the rear link a little and take 1mm out of the ackermann. Asked about the finals, he predicted the track would lead to ‘close racing’. Describing it as an ‘understeery track’ he said this meant it was easy to get your corner entry wrong which was making for overtaking opportunities.

‘I crashed again’ was how Orlowski summed up losing the overall TQ.  Having crashed on the last lap of Q3 when on a TQ run that would have secured him pole position early, the factory Schumacher driver was on new tyres for the decider and trying to break them in during the warm-up he said they had a good feeling for the qualifier.  Setting down the early TQ pace he described his mistake on lap 6 of 15 as an ‘unlucky crash’ as he jumped ‘too short’ on the middle jump leading to the lose of 4-seconds.  ‘Still happy with 2nd’ on the grid, the 14-year-old said with good sets of tyres for the finals he is ready to race for the win.  The Polish driver said there is going to be lot of places for passing and feels the table top is one area there will be many opportunity to pass due to other’s errors.

The surprise of yesterday’s qualifying when he finished both heats P2 behind Orlowski, Team Associated driver Niclas Månsson would count those results to secure 3rd on the grid.  Qualifying 9th last year, the Swede said it was his driving than let things down today with both heats containing a lot of mistakes.  19th in Q3 and P9 in the final heat, the 26-year-old said his B5M is good and he will ‘just leave it as is’ for the finals in which his aim is to ‘try and stay on the podium’.

2WD Champion for the first two years that offroad was added to the event, Joern Neumann will start 4th. His worst starting position to-date, the German said the problem in Q4 was that he ‘pushed too hard’.  Needing a TQ or P2 to start in the Top 3, he said it was everything or nothing but his 110% approach didn’t pay off as he crashed twice early on.  Happy that his modified Serpent SX4 is good he will leave it unchanged for the final saying he just needs to take his driving ‘back to 100%, not 110%’.  The German, who remains unbeaten in 4WD, said with everyone making small mistakes there would be plenty of opportunity to overtake over the 5-minute races.

Completing the top half of the grid, Martin Bayer said ‘from 5th I don’t know what I can do.  In the middle of the pack is one of the worst positons’.  Two places better than he qualified last year, he said the section after the start is not so tricky so hopefully this will lead to clean starts adding ‘if this is possible it could be possible to make up some places’.  Making his DHI Cup debut Xray team-mate Bruno Coelho will line-up 7th on the grid tomorrow behind top local hope Yokomo’s Frederik Hovgaard.

View the complete 2wd Buggy results here.

View the event image gallery here.