Orlowski claims TQ honours on TITC debut
Michal Orlowski has claimed the overall TQ honours at the TITC in Bangkok, the Schumacher driver securing pole position for his debut at the legendary touring car race when for the third time in a row he topped qualifying. While it might be the Polish driver’s first time at the race that has earned itself the title of the unofficial World Championship of Touring Car, the race is proofing to be very much a repeat of last November’s official IFMAR World Championship where Orlowski and Bruno Coelho were the class of the field with their rivals fighting over 3rd position. The third & penultimate afternoon time qualifier would prove slower than Q2 but in terms of order the Top 6 were identical. While it was Coelho who had the outright fastest car on track this time round he once again could not better Orlowski, the gap the closest yet though at 0.058 of a second. Getting his tyre gluing correct this time round, Marc Rheinard got the closest he has been yet to the Top 2 as the Awesomatix driver got a P3, 2.9-seconds off Orlowski’s TQ time. Summing up the round’s finishing order as ‘boring’, Lucas Urbain added another P4 to his tally with Akio Sobue and Hayato Ishioka completing the Top 6 for Axon.
