Leino wins ENS Austria to give Infinity first win
Selina
2016-09-26 14:09:45
Having been in a class of his own all weekend, Teemu Leino has capped off a perfect performance at the third round of the Euro Nitro Series with victory in Austria. A repeat of his 2015 result at the Aigen track, this time round the win was more convincing and one which will go down in his team’s history as it mark’s nitro onroad newcomers Team Infinity’s first win as a manufacturer. Starting from the TQ, Leino came under the attention of Serpent’s Dominic Greiner early on as the pair pulled clear of the 12-car field. However having just made his first tyre stop, Greiner’s race would come to an abrupt end as the rear right axle bearing assembly parted company with the car as he chased Leino. That left Leino to drive a calculated race to claim his second consecutive win of the season and put himself into serious contention for the title that is currently held by his absent from Austria team-mate Jilles Groskamp. Behind Leino, Erik Dankel would keep him honest eventually finishing 10-seconds back to make a much welcomed return to the podium for the former champion, that podium being completed by Thilo Tödtmann.
Having secured his Ettlingen win driving a Capricorn as he waited on Infinity’s new 1:10 prototype release for the World Championship, Leino said, ‘I am very happy to give Infinity their first win. I’m very happy for Kenji because he has pushed a lot for this and put everything in place to make winning possible’. On today’s final, his win making him the ENS’ most successful 1:10 driver, he said, ‘the race went pretty much like planned. We went for two full tyre stops so I could all the time drive full punch’. He continued, ‘when I saw Dominic stop for only two (outside tyres) I knew we were good’. While the first tyre stop was troubled, loosing him 10-seconds, leaving ‘Erik on (his) bumper’ he said ‘I knew also we had one less fuel stop to do then Erik’ so it was ok. Having changed the set-up on his Novarossi powered prototype for the final practice he said he ended up going back to the set-up he ran in qualifying and ‘it was the right decision’ adding his ‘engine was very stable all the time’ over the 45-minutes. The only major moment of the race was one he created himself in the closing minutes. Asked what caused him to roll his car and need marshalling he said, ‘I tried to push more to get a bigger lead and ended up making a stupid mistake’.
