Arnaldi takes GT victory at Asian Nitro Party

With the 1:8 GT Final bringing a successful inaugural Asian Nitro Party race to a close under the lights at the Hongyu GDC track, it was Genius’ Bernard-Alain Arnaldi who took the win in China.  It was to be a drama packed start to the 45-minute final with World Champion Alessio Mazzeo calling a time out during the warm-up due to an engine issue.  With that time out expiring, as the rest of the field headed to the grid after complete a restarted warm-up, Mazzeo’s car only making its back onto the starter having been fitted with a new engine that still needed to be tuned.  With this hastily done by Gimar’s Giovanni Crea to try not miss the start, the Italian would have to begin from the pit lane.  With that immediately putting him half lap down, Italy’s quest for victory was struck a blow for a second time as Top Qualifier Natanaele Senesi would flame just 2 corners after the start.  He would rejoin two laps down as Spain’s Raul Anton led the way in front of team-mate Arnaldi, who had had a mistake at the first corner.  Anton would soon allow the Frenchman to go to the front, giving Arnaldi plenty of room to execute a pass at the end of lap 6.  Once there that was where he would stay til the finish.  With Mazzeo’s Raptor the fastest car on track, it did look like we might be in for a showdown in the closing stages of the race.  Getting the gap down to 3-seconds, unfortunately damage to his body would in turn lead to it cutting into his tyre and causing his pace to drop right off and allowing Arnaldi to build back up his advantage to win by 16-seconds.  All the time, as the Mazzeo tried to chase down the leader, Senesi was working his way back up through the field to salvage a podium finish.

Reacting to his win, Arnaldi said, ‘It was a very good race for me except for one mistake at the first corner.  After that I raced with a lot of strategy for our refuelling and tyres.  This was very hard because Alessio is very fast, but it work out very well.’  The 2-time European Champion continued, ‘My car was very consistent, my engine consumption was very good.  I made two less refuelling than Alessio.’  On the battle that was looming in the closing stages of the race he said, ‘I don’t push 100% in the race so at the end I had still enough tyre to respond to Alessio.’  Summing up the event he said, ‘’The weekend started slow & bad and every day it got better & better.  I was maybe not happy with our speed in the end but the end race result is perfect.’  Asked about coming back to defend his win next year, the Asia Nitro Party set to establish itself as a season opener on the international nitro onroad calendar, Arnaldi replied, ‘For sure’.  Today’s win is perfect preparation for his French National GT Championship which kicks off in a months time but before that he reverts to a race organiser of his own Large Scale & GT8 race, this year being its 5th edition.

Putting his engine trouble ahead of the race down to some sort of dirt getting into the engine, Mazzeo said they had no choice but to change it ahead of the final.  He explain, ‘we take an engine from Natanaele, so thank you Natanaele and Michelle for the engine, but when we started the engine was not set for carburation so we set it during the race.  We had to come in many times to adjust it.  The engine was sometime too rich so we loose time on the track with that also.’  The 33-year-old continued, ‘We start from the pit lane, not P11, and I tried to catch BA (Arnaldi) but we lost a bit of time in the pit lane with the body touching but still in the end I think I could do it because the gap was only 4-seconds, but on my last pit stop I touched the wall and the body went in and cut the tyre so that was like ‘you have no win today’.  The race was like a big quali, I pushed every lap and our pace was super fast’.  Always a driver with great respect for his rivals, he said, ‘Congrats to BA and I am happy for Genius because it is an Italian brand so I am happy they won in Asia.’  He was also full of praise for the race and his first trip to China, ‘It has been an amazing race so I will be back next year for sure.  Gavin (Kwok) did an amazing job.  It’s an experience that is impossible to describe, you have to come live it.’  While his next race will see him at the controls of an 1:8 Buggy at his engine sponsor’s Gimar Trophy Race, in March he will be back to GT for the opening round of the Italian National at his home track of Naxos in Scilly.

Trying to explain the flame out that robbed him of the chance of a perfect debut using the Raptor chassis, Senesi said, ‘I started, the engine was good and I arrived at the second corner but since I release the throttle and went slowly on it again I fouled up the engine and it stopped.  I lost 2-laps and then it was an impossible race to come back’.   Recapping the weekend’s performance, he sad, ‘I think at the beginning of the race we where the fastest, then Alessio came in pretty good, and without the flame out I think it would have been another race but overall I am super happy because it is the first race with new car and I TQ’d and make P3 with a flameout.’  With it hard not to be impressed by Hongyu GDC,  Senesi said, ‘I think Gavin made a great job with the facility and all around it.  For sure there are always ways improve how the race is run so as to make it even better but for sure he organised a very nice race and it is for sure the race to come to in Asia.  I will be back next year absolutely.’

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Matsukura gives masterclass in China to win Asian Nitro Party

Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura gave his rivals a masterclass on how to execute a perfect 45-minutes of driving, the Japanese driver turning around a difficult qualifying to win the inaugural Asia Nitro Party at Hongyu GDC track in China.  After qualifying 14th, he gave the first hint of what was to come in the Semi Finals coming from 7th on the grid ahead of the Mugen Seiki of JJ Wang who started on pole.  Lining up second for the Main event behind the Mugen Seiki of Top Qualifier Sinnosuke Yokoyama, Matsukura would get jump on his countryman off the line and once in front never looked back.  Unfortunately Yokoyama’s impressive qualifying performance wouldn’t be rewarded in the final, the OS. Speed factory driver having a difficult race and suffering a flame out and also needing to do a body change during the race.  He would finish 8th 15-laps down on the winner.  While Matsukura controlled the race, Xray’s Filippo Domanin would keep him honest, the former Nitro Touring Car World Champion’s 7-second advantage over the Italian teenager never enough to allow him to completely relax.  Having made a good start from 5th on the grid after winning his Semi Final, Domanin also had to watch his back with Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani only 3-second behind at the finish.  Competing the podium, Catanzani set the fastest lap of the final but having to tune his engine in the early part of the race prevented the World Championship Top Qualifier from challenging for the win.  Fourth place would be decided in the final stages of the race between Wang, who impressed in qualifying with two TQ runs, and Hotrace tyres owner Nicola Marrone.  With both drivers having limited race mileage in recent years, Marrone would get by in the final 2-minutes of the race as Wang ran out of tyres.  Afterwards both drivers looked very stiff following their first 45-minute final in a number of years.

With his reaction on the driver stand showing how much the win meant, going through his race Matsukura explained, ‘At the beginning my car was pretty good.  I was trying to save my tyres but I was surprised, that even though I wasn’t pushing, the tyres wore down more than I expected.’  He continued, ‘Before the race we had decided we would only stop and change tyres on the right side.  But the tyres on the left side where too small and then after changing the tyres (1-side) the car was very very difficult to drive.  It worked in the end but to change all four would have been much better for this track.’  Having run 3-minute fuel stops in his Semi Final, adding this was to be extra safe because a flame out would have meant an early end to the event, for the final he switched to 3:30 stops.  Complimenting his stand in mechanic for this weekend, team-mate Kouki Kato covering in for his legendary pitman Masayuki Muira who was unable to attend, he said Kato was always checking each stop to ensure they were still safe at 3:30.  He added, ‘at the beginning of the final the engine was OK but after it went a little rich, I don’t know why, but I kept going and didn’t push so much.’  Joking with Matsukura whether Muira could now retire after Kouki flawless performance, he was quick to say ‘no’ but he did say Kato was ‘very cool’ under pressure adding ‘even though he is much younger than me he was coming on the radio and saying to me ‘keep going’ or ‘calm down, calm down’, it was good.’

One of Italy’s emerging Nitro Onroad racer, summing up his final Domanin said, ‘The car was good and the pace was good, all was perfect.’  Another to find pace from changing his set-up after the Semi final, the 17-year-old said ‘in the Semi the car was not super good but the final it was very good.’  Asked about the changes they made, he explained that they went to a heavier shock oil in the front of his RX8 giving him a good car for the longer race.  One of a number of drivers for whom the Asia Nitro Party was there first time to China, the son of former European Champion Fabio Domanin was happy to open his international race season with a podium finish alongside Matsukura and Catanzani.

Cantanzani responded to his podium finish by saying, ‘I am happy about the performance of the car because we changed something after the Semi and I think it worked really well.’  He continued, ‘the car was not like I wanted in the Semi so we made a change and it was much better but we made an error to start the final with the engine too rich.  We were too safe and we had to stop and lean it a bit and we lost time there.  Wth all these fast guys you can’t make back that kind of time.’  The 20-year-old added, ‘In the end it was good for the podium but we can do better and we just have to learn from the experience for the next race.’  On his tyre and fuel strategy he said, ‘my dad called me when he had 3:30 on the watch so maybe 3:40 I pit.  For the tyres we made only 1-stop for all four.  I think we were the last to change tyres, we did it around 30-minutes (into the race).’

Getting passed late in the race by Marrone, on his race Wang said, ‘We finished.  The pace wasn’t there the whole race.  I was trying to save some tyre in the beginning as I went with a no tyre change strategy and it just didn’t work out at the end.’  Asked if he lacked the speed or if it was a result of trying to make his tyres go the full distance, he replied, ‘I think both.  Pure speed wasn’t really there even though the car felt good actually, but I went in trying to safe tyres a little bit in the beginning but the guys at the front were just too fast.  So even with a tyre change it would have been tough.  It was actually a clean race for me, no mistakes, pit stops were good, but the strategy didn’t work.’  Making a return to the 1:8 Onroad class to support the Asia Nitro Party, the Chinese American driver said, ‘It felt good to finish a long race, I’m a bit sore, but it’s good to run with everybody again.’

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