2019 EFRA 1/10 Track European Championship Finals Round Up

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With Dominic Greiner and Robert Pietsch already having secured their spots in the main final the battle was on for the eight remaining slots. The top three from each Semi final would go through, along with the two fastest losers; these could be the fourth and fifth cars from either the A or the B semi, or the two fourth place men.

The B semi was first to run, with some early drama as Kyle Branson was unable to take his P4 grid slot after a mechanical issue. Fast work from his mechanic got him out on track just as Poleman Alessio Mazzeo was approaching the pit exit, so Kyle was almost a lap down before a lap was complete! Mazzeo and 10th Place starter Thilo Todtmann were setting a strong pace at the front and opted for a four stop strategy to get them through the twenty minutes, while Francesco Tironi ran long to the first stop at five minutes and only made three further stops. This allowed him to move to the front of the pack and take the win, with Mazzeo second and Todtmann third joining him in guaranteeing their places in the main final. Branson staged a great recovery to forth from Melvin Diekmann, but these two would need to wait for the outcome of the second semi to know if they had made it.

Dario Balestri was supposed to start the A semi from pole, but called for a 10 minute delay to fix a mechanical issue demoting him to the back of the grid which meant that Patrick Nahr would lead through most of the stops until two thirds distance, with Jilles Groskamp and defending champion Teemu Leino in close attendance. Nahr dropped back in the latter stages of the race promoting Eduardo Escandon into third and a recovering Balestri into fourth, until Dario passed Eduardo with 3 laps remaining. The final finishing order was Leino, Groskamp and Balestri as the top three, with Escandon and Nahr fourth and fifth. The pace of this semi was so strong that both Escandon and Nahr made it into the main final as the two fastest losers, meaning Branson and Diekmann missed out.

Into the forty-five minute main final then, and Dominic Greiner continued his qualifying form to put on a masterclass, leading every single lap of the final despite running four minute fuel stops rather than the five minute stops of some of his competitors. He even had enough to take on one complete set of tyres and one outside set of tyres compared to the majority of his rivals just taking the complete set, completing his dominance of the week to take a well deserved European title. Dario Balestri had quite a lonely run to second, freely admitting that he had no chance to catch Dominic on pace so was content to bring the car home one he had emerged at the head of the chasing pack. Francesco Tironi repeated his tactics from the semi final, running less stops than his rivals to leap up the order, just holding onto third place from a hard charging Robert Pietsch by four tenths of a second after forty-five minutes!

Race statistics:

With rain having altered the plan for qualifying to commence on Thursday, the timetable was revised after a Team Managers meeting. This meant that Friday would consist of one round of free practice to clean up the track after more rain overnight, then five rounds of qualifying.

Dominic Greiner used his local knowledge of the MCC Turkheim circuit to wrap up qualifying early, taking all three rounds of qualifying held before lunch to give him an unassailable score with the driver’s best three scores from five rounds to count. Dominic took the rounds from a different driver each time, with Robert Pietsch taking second in round one, Dario Balestri in round two and defending champion Teemu Leino in round three. Each of these drivers looked capable of running a single lap as fast as Dominic, but it was his relentless consistency that was allowing him to eke out a gap of around 2.5 seconds each time.

Dominic continued his morning form into the afternoon, sealing the last two rounds too, leaving the Superpole line up as Dario Balestri, Robert Pietsch, Alessio Mazzeo and Patrick Nahr. These four drivers would do battle to see who would join Greiner in qualifying directly into Saturday’s main final.

As fifth place qualifier, Nahr would be the first to set a time. His best lap of the six was a 13.248 which Mazzeo would attempt to beat. Alessio appeared to have leaned his engine slightly in an attempt to gain a little more power for the Superpole session, but looked to have gone too far and the resulting lack of pickup from his fuel starved engine ensured he would not beat the time already set by Nahr. Robert Pietsch was next to go and despite his misgivings about the suitability of his car for the tighter turns of the Turkheim track, he managed to set a 13.207 during his six lap run eliminating Nahr from the contest.

Superpole specialist Dario Balestri was last to run and looked to be well set to try and beat The time set by Pietsch, but after a small mistake on lap one his engine flamed out and he coasted into the pits on lap two. With the Superpole rules dictating no outside assistance for any of the drivers his mechanic was unable to restart the car, ensuring Robert Pietsch secured the second of the two available starting spots for the 45 minute main final alongside Greiner, with Balestri, Mazzeo and Nahr all having to compete in the 20 minute semi finals to try to join them.

published: 2019-08-17 07:32:34 (1052) Author: