October 10, 2014

Matsukura tops final practice

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Naoto Matsukura topped the final round of practice at the Touring Car World Championships in Florida recording both the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the day and the first 18-laps run of the Kissimmee track. The Japanese driver headed the third controlled practice from Yokomo team-mate Ronald Volker with Xray’s Paul Lemieux third and defending World Champion Jilles Groskamp fourth. With the heats for qualifying already set after the first two rounds of controlled practice, Volker topping that, by setting the pace in CP3 Matsukura will lead away the top heat in this evenings opening round of qualifying.

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Pleased with the ‘clean’ run, Matsukura said his ‘car was good’ and with the driver ‘feeling good’ he was looking forward to qualifying getting underway. With a car that seems to have an edge over team-mate Volker when the conditions are cooler, the 21-year-old is confident about his chances in the first of the six scheduled qualifiers which will bring Day 2 of the Kissimmee event to a close.

Volker

Volker felt his car was ‘a tiny bit better’ in the previous practice and said only Matsukura was a bit faster the rest of the field was bigger so all was still good. Planning to discuss with his engineer Yukijiro Umino if they can get the car to run as it did in CP2, the European Champion said he ran a clean 5-minutes and he was happy with that. For the opening qualifier he added he would ‘step up things a bit’ in terms of his driving.

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While his three laps improved, Lemieux said he needs to improve for the first qualifier. Really good at the beginning, the RC America driver said he worked his tyres too much and he was struggling by the end. Not sure whether its the set-up or his driving which is at fault, for Q1 he will leave the car as is and try to drive differently with the big focus being to put in a clean 5-minutes so as to try and get a decent first round result.

Jilles

‘Not too bad’ was Groskamp’s summary of the final practice. Suffering one crash that cost him 4-seconds, he said this allowed him to run behind Volker adding it was good to see the lines the German was running. Apart from the crash, he said this was the best he has driven so far in the event and he hopes to carry that through to qualifying.

Bruno

Raising a few eyebrows with his P2 pace in the second controlled practice, Bruno Coelho backed it up with a 5th in the final practice. The Portuguese driver described the round as ‘so so’. A good first half the sun then started to effect his view causing his eyes to water up. Behind Coelho Tamiya’s Akio Sobue completed the Top 6 followed by team-mate Viktor Wilck.

Rheinard

Tamiya’s 3-time Touring Car World Champion Marc Rheinard would post the 10th fastest time. Mistakes on the entry to the main straight on the opening two laps ruined a good 3-lap time but the German said changes to his set-up for the run left the car not as good. While his driving improved for the rest of the run, his engineer Kiyo Suzuki will change the TRF419 back to the set-up used in CP2.

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