October 8, 2014

Q5 Update – Rheinard TQs with new fastest time

Rheinard

The penultimate round of qualifying produced the first change at the top of the qualifying time-sheets at the 1:12 Worlds as Marc Rheinard set a new outright fastest pace with his CRC. With the overall TQ decided in the previous round after Naoto Matsukura completed a clean sweep of the opening four qualifiers, Round 5 would see the Yokomo driver retire after contact with team-mate Masatsugu Ido. Despite this Rheinard, who himself retired from Q4 with a broken car, found new form to better Matsukura’s best round by an impressive 6-seconds. Also finding form in Day 2’s closing round of action was Alexander Hagberg, the Xray driver also putting in a 53 lap run that bettered that of the defending champion. Impressing in Q4 with second, Donny Lia backed that up with third as he too broke into the 53 laps.

Rheinard

Having suffered a power drop off on his way to second in Q2 but only going half distance in Q3, Rheinard attributed his new speed to his second charge battery providing him with ‘punch’ for the entire 8-minutes. Also his cleanest round in terms of driving, the 3-time Touring Car World Champion, who holds provisional second on the grid, said for the final qualifier he will just try to repeat the same thing in the morning. Happy with how the car ran, the only change the German is planning is to fit a new Protoform AMR12 bodyshell, the front of his current one starting to be a bit shabby from some heavy contact with the boards over the day.

Hagberg

After a frustrating day having been unable to match the impressive pace he laid down in practice yesterday, Hagberg was finally able to break a smile with his Q5 run. Having ran the rear hub brace loose on his X12 yesterday when securing the top seeding position for qualifying, the Swede said he believed that in his struggle today tightening it would have compounded the issue but giving in to tightening it he said it returned the car to how it felt yesterday. Setting a new outright fastest lap, with a time of 8.699, he said with his confidence restored he hoped to be able to end qualifying with similar run which would help greatly in improving on his current provisional 7th in the qualification ranking.

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Describing his first World Championship appearance as being ‘surreal’, local racer Lia said he is ‘thrilled’ to be in the A-Main and running with ‘World class’ drivers. Commenting on his Q5 performance, the TOP sponsored driver felt he drove too conservatively for the first few minutes leaving him to play catch up to Hagberg, the pair running in the second fastest heat following a re-sort after Q3. Really confident in his car he will try to run a faster pace from the start of the final qualifier.

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Behind Kitazawa who posted the fourth fastest time, Q5 would see the best run from Team Associated with Keven Hebert and Juho Levanen both making the Top 6. Elsewhere unfortunately for Jilles Groskamp he had a repeat of the electrical issue he suffered in Q3. Sitting 21st in the overnight ranking, the pressure is now on for the 2010 runner-up to get a result in Q6 in order to make the A-Main. It was also a bad round for 2012 Runner-up Andy Moore who failed to complete the round and now has no chance of making the A-Main.

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