Ongaro set early pace at Buggy Worlds
Having had three rounds of practice yesterday to familiarise themselves with the Thornhill Racing Circuit track layout on which IFMAR will crown its 20th 1:8 Nitro Buggy World Champion come Saturday, it is Team Associated’s defending Champion Davide Ongaro who is setting the early pace in Texas. With drivers best 3-consecutive laps improving in huge chunks over yesterday, Xray’s David Ronnefalk fastest on 1:58.124 in the first round, Sworkz’s Camden Lime fastest in the second run on 1:54.709, it was Ongaro who ended the day fastest with a 1:51.540 in the third free practice. With three more practice rounds on today’s schedule it was the Italian who opened proceedings with the fastest time. While a slower pace than yesterday evening’s run, Ongaro was, on like for like conditions, quickest from Ronnefalk with Kyosho’s Riccardo Berton third ahead of the Sworkz of Mason Fuller, Kyosho’s Marco Baruffolo and the Associated of reigning eBuggy World Champion Marcus Kaerup.
Summing up his latest practice run, Ongaro, who chases a 4th consecutive World title this week in Hutto, said, ‘The car was a bit soft in the rear in the last 4-minutes of that last run I would say so now we are trying to find the balance between tyres and shock oil, but we are feeling better compared to yesterday.’ Asked his impressions on the track layout, the winner of the Warm-Up here back in May, said, ‘The track is good but I think there is maybe too many lanes too close to one another so you don’t have room to crash lets say. When you go out of one lane you end up in the other.’ He continued, ‘The track is fun for sure, lots of jumps, American style, but at the Warm-up it was one less lane so I think it was a little bit better but anyway it is good.’ On current tyre choice, the Matrix backed driver said, ‘we are on Black Holes and we are trying to switch from clay to the regular compound so we don’t know yet which one is working better but we will test to see.’
‘I am very happy with how it has gone so far’ was the reaction of an upbeat Ronnefalk. The Swede continued, ‘the 4 rounds have all been pretty good, I found myself in the Top 3 every round so far so that means the base is working. So now we will follow the track evolution and which way it goes.’ On how the track is changing he said, ‘Obviously it is going to go grippy as we run even more on it and we just need to adjust the car ever so slightly for that. I am feeling very comfortable out there and not doing too many mistakes and I feel like the speed is great.’ Asked if he likes the layout, he replied, ‘I love it.’ He explained, ‘these kind of tracks are a lot of fun to drive and I feel I have a good history on tracks with a lot of jumps and stuff. You need to keep the momentum and the flow, and jump fast. It is difficult, you see a lot of drivers making mistakes and as the grip comes up even more so but it also separates the drivers. You can see the times, there are couple of guys in the front, then like a second back there are a few more guys, and already 2-3 seconds down to the tenth guy which over 3-laps is quite a lot. If there were less jumps it would be super close but now there is so much going on all the time, the car and the driver are making a bigger difference.’ On tyres, the 2016 World Champion said, ‘I have been driving the new thread from Hotrace, the Tokyo tyre, and it has been a good choice so far. I haven’t tried the Saharas yet but I will probably do so just to see which one I prefer but the Tokyo seems to work fine.’
Making the 2024 Worlds Final in Spain, then driving for Infinity, asked his first impression of track and how his Kyosho is running, Berton said, ‘The track is pretty good this is the first time here for me so I didn’t really know how it would work but its going pretty well and everything s working good so lets see. Asked about car set-up, the Italian replied, ‘Honestly I worked a little bit at home on doing some different things and I achieved a lot of things with these adjustments and it work well so lets see for the rest of the week. The layout is very nice, and I like the grip, it is not too much, its something I am used too so its good.’ Running Matrix Black Hole Super Soft tyre, the 27-year-old is considering trying a different compound explaining, ‘there are a lot of tight corners so with a harder compound maybe you lose some steering which really important.’
‘Starting with a fourth I would say you couldn’t really can’t get much better than that,’ was how Fuller summed up this early pace. He continued, ‘I have been getting better each run. I started Top 20 the first few runs, then I got a 6 and now a 4th for the first one today, so I have been getting consistently better each run. On the improved, the 21-year-old said, ‘I have got the track down now and I have been changing the set-up each run and tyres’. Running the new JConcepts Spacebar in Silver for the fourth practice he said ‘it was the best I have ran so far’. On the set-up changes the back to back Silver State Champion, said, ‘I have been doing just small stuff so far because the car has been pretty good, the traction has come up a little bit so I have just gone a little stiffer on everything. Slowly get a little more grip in the track and the car will be better.’ A driver who has race here regularly on the layout he said, ‘it is definitely the hardest one we have had here, I have raced here 4-times in the passed year and this is also probably the most fun one we’ve had.’
