Green & Dankel claim Euro Nitro Series win

Mark Green and Eric Dankel took the wins at the first ever Euro Nitro Series held at the Hockenheimring in Germany where the winning margin in both the 1:8 and 1:10 Touring finals was just 3-seconds. Green’s first international win for some time, the British ace was joined on the podium by the Mugen of World Champion Robert Pietsch and his Serpent team-mate Michael Salven.  Leading the Touring Car final from start to finish Top Qualifier Dankel was surrounded by French drivers on the podium with Basile Concialdi finishing 2nd to making it a Capricorn 1-2 with fellow countryman Michael Derderian driving an Xray in 3rd.

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Pietsch & Dankel Top Qualifiers at ENS

Robert Pietsch and Eric Dankel are the Top Qualifiers for the first ever Euro Nitro Series Race, the German duo set to lead away the 12 car A-Main grids later this evening at the Hockenheimring in Germany. While Dankel put pole position for the 45-minute 1:10 Touring final beyond the reach of his rivals in last night’s penultimate qualifier, the number 1 starting position for the 1:8 A-Main was still to play for in this morning’s fifth & final qualifier between Pietsch and Mark Green. In the end despite failing to finish Q5 it was Mugen driver Pietsch who took the honour on tie break thanks to him having a faster TQ run than that of Green, although in the final qualifier Green did post his fastest run of the weekend when he took 2nd behind Serpent team-mate Salven. Having ran a TQ pace in nearly every qualifier Salven was finally able to keep the run clean to claim TQ for the round doing so with the fastest 4-minute run of the event.

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Green & Dankel post a 2nd TQ run

The third round of qualifying for the Euro Nitro Series ‘Pilot Race’ saw Mark Green and Eric Dankel record a second TQ run at the Hockenheimring in Germany.  Opening the event, earlier in the day, with a TQ run Green took Q3 from Shepherd’s Lars Hoppe in a round that saw Q2 pace setter Robert Pietsch suffer an engine failure and Michael Salven make yet another costly mistake while on a TQ pace.  After a bad start to qualifying, Capricorn’s Dankel backed up his Q2 topping performance with another TQ run again ahead of Dirk Wischnewski who is struggling to find a set-up for the still low traction caused by the rain that effected the event all of yesterday and for the first part of today.

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ENS to get underway this evening

Washed out by wet weather which caused the cancellation of controlled practice yesterday, competitors at the opening race of the new Euro Nitro Series again woke to rain this morning in Germany however at a drivers briefing held at 11:00 and lead by Race Director Uwe Rheinard it was agreed that racing will get underway later this evening.  Forecasts for the area are showing that from 15:00 local time the weather is set to improve and based on this information it is hoped to be able to get racing underway on a dry track at 17:00 or earlier if conditions allow.  Planning to run three rounds of qualifying today it was agreed to set a cut off time of 18:00 irrespective of the track conditions as to start any later would not leave enough time to fully complete three rounds of heats.  Unlike the normal qualifying format used in onroad nitro which decides the grids on a drivers overall fastest time, the ENS will use the same round by round points system common to electric touring car racing which should, if the track is still drying, make for a fairer qualifying.  With the weather for tomorrow, Sunday, giving a dry day it is planned to have a fourth round of qualifying with a driver counting their best two rounds from the four.

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Rain postpones Day 1 of ENS

The much anticipated new Euro Nitro Series will start a day later than originally planned as racers woke to a very wet morning in Hockenheim, Germany, leaving organisers no choice but to postpone Day 1 of the event which should have seen 5 rounds of controlled practice. With the weather down for the day and set to improve mid morning tomorrow, Saturday, it is hoped to be able to get the event officially underway at around lunchtime. Sunday’s weather is giving perfect conditions for racing. Despite this morning’s conditions one driver decided he could do with some wet practice, bravely taking to the track with his touring car but his first attempt on the soaked track lasted just two laps before the engine decided it had consumed enough water. Today’s weather is in total contrast to yesterday’s set-up day when the sun shown down on the home of Formula 1’s European Grand Prix with many drivers including most of the main contenders able to get in some track track time as the host club ran a day of open practice.