Bernadzik takes Q3 at Asian Buggy Champs

Alex Bernadzik has kicked off Day 2 of qualifying at the Asian Buggy Championships finale in Jarkarta with a TQ run, the 3rd of the 5 qualifiers producing a Team Associated 1-2 as Hyunkyu Jung recorded the second fastest time on what was a slower track than yesterday.  With Pekko Iivonen making the first day of qualifying at West Side Raceway his own, topping both qualifiers, it was Jung and Bernadzik who battled out Q3 as the Finn used the round to test a harder compound tyre.  Unfortunately for Jung traffic in the closing stages of the run cost him the top spot with Bernadzik, once again setting the fastest lap of the round, securing his first TQ by half a second from the young Korean.  With the run the slowest of the three so far, the track almost 5-seconds off yesterday afternoon’s Q2, the Top 3 would be completed by Infinity’s Jason Nugroho.  A 46-second lap half way through the round saw Iivonen stop the clock with the fourth fastest time ahead of Jayden Edmunds, the Sparko driver struggling for pace after putting on a brand new set of tyre for the run.

Pleased to finally register a TQ run, Bernadzik said, ‘For the most part it was a good clean run but the car felt a little bit slow, it had too much rear grip’.  The 24-year-old continued, ‘I guess just with the track it feels like it has a lot of grip in it today but I don’t know if is it just the temperature or maybe I need to go up in shock oils a little bit.  I need a little more steering and to make it more aggressive again and then it should be fine.’  The only one to run a 41-second lap for the round, on his eBuggy effort he described Q3 as ‘average’.  Fourth fastest, Iivonen registering his first TQ run in the electric class, the Brisbane driver said both he, having crashed on his last lap, and the car need to improve.

Despite his traffic issue, summing up the round, Jung said, ‘It was not bad, my car was actually pretty good now.’  Not happy with nitro buggy in Q2, he said they changed to new shocks for today and ‘this worked pretty well’.  Balked badly by another buggy, the 16-year-old said, ‘the traffic out there is a little bit annoying but we still have two more so we will see what we can do.’  On the track conditions he said, ‘today I think it’s slower and more dusty on the outside so there is less grip.  Yesterday was pretty clean but today I don’t know why but its super less grip.’  On changes for Q4, he will leave his nitro car unchanged as he feels the track is going to change again but he will try something on his electric buggy first which runs earlier in he 10-heat round.

Asked how he felt Q3 went, Nugroho replied, ‘It went well.  I tried my best to keep it safe and not crash cause I feel like there is more dust on the track and it’s more loose than yesterday afternoon.’  He added, ‘Fortunately I had no traffic issues but I had a couple of bobbles myself.’  The 26-year-old continued, ‘Now I am trying to figuring out what  I can do to the car to get more steering.’

Iivonen said, ‘From yesterday I knew the pace was so good that I didn’t really need to worry too much this morning so I wanted to try a bit harder of a compound of tyre and it was a bit more slippery so harder to drive.’  The ABC Round 2 Malaysia Top Qualifier continued, ‘I made a couple of mistakes because of that but otherwise I think the car feels super nice to drive.’  The Mayako driver added, ‘we got some new parts that just arrived today so I will also try those next.’  With 2 of the five rounds to count, his Q2 time a potential tie breaker, he concluded, ‘I think we will be good cause I think the track wont get as fast as yesterday evening and it was quite a clean run but I still want to take a couple more TQ’s in nitro to be safe but with the time I should be good’.

2 from 2 for Iivonen as last lap error costs Bernadzik Q2

Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen made it 2 from 2 on the opening day of qualifying at the fourth & final round of the Asian Buggy Championships in Indonesia, the Finn taking Q2 after a late mistake by Top Seed Alex Bernadzik.  Having topped the opening qualifier, Iivonen set the early pace of the afternoon run but again setting the fastest lap of the round Bernadzik’s Team Associated went to the top of the timing screens 2-minutes into the 5-minute qualifier.  On the final lap however a mistake from the Australian would see him drop 1-second on his previous lap time, allowing Iivonen to top times by 1.061 of a second.  Behind it was Korean teenager Hyunkyu Jung who posted the third fastest time ahead of Jason Nugroho and Sparko’s Jayden Edmunds.

Summing up his perfect day and his Q2 run, Iivonen said, ‘the car was really really good and I think there was a bit more grip on the track or in the tyres, either way it felt super super nice.’  Setting his fastest lap of the race on his final lap, he continued, ‘I caught up someone in the middle of the qualifier and got a bit held up but then caught it back up at the end.  JQ was saying that I was a couple of tenths from the TQ and then I just pushed the last lap and I was able to get the TQ done.’  Looking to tomorrow’s second day of qualifying, 3 more rounds to run with drivers counting their best two from the total of five, on any car changes Iivonen said, ‘There is nothing on my mind right now to change for tomorrow but I will glue a new set of tyres and see what I will do with them.’

‘It was pretty smooth sailing until I made a meal of it on the last lap’, was Bernadzik reaction to throwing away a TQ run.  He added, ‘the car was really good there.  I went a little less rear toe which helped so I am glad I did that and I could probably go less again as the car was really still locked in.  It was really easy to drive but I just needed it a bit more aggressive.’  On his mistake he said, ‘It was just my bad.  I clipped the pipe and got stuck in the infield and had to drive back on to the track so it cost me a bit over a second.  So it would have made it really close at the end there.  We’ve got three more to go so we’ll try work some magic tomorrow’.  Taking the eBuggy TQ for the second round, he said that buggy ‘was a lot better’ the second time round and for the morning he will drive both buggies unchanged.

Despite his P3 for the round, Jung was very dejected by how his Team Associated performed.  He said, ‘the car is not working out there, it is so difficult to drive, I don’t know what is wrong.’  Fitting a new set of tyres for the run but otherwise making no changes to how he ran in Q1, he continued, ‘I know on new tyres it will be loose at the beginning but it wasn’t the tyre, the car felt like something is broken.’  Planning a full rebuild of his Nitro buggy, the 16-year-old concluded, ‘we still have 3 more rounds left and where you start in a 1-hour final is not that important so we will try a few things tomorrow to try get the car right for the main.’

Having lacked the grip he was expecting in Q1, on his Q2 performance Infinity’s Nugroho said, ‘I changed the car’s geometry and it got better.  I had more steering and I was able to push the car a little bit more but I had two laps in a row with mistakes which cost me a couple of seconds.’  Describing his buggy as feeling more comfortable now compared to seeding, the Indonesian driver says he is feeling more confident for Saturday’s action.  Improving his buggy with a set-up change between the first two qualifiers he said having found a good base to work from he plans on few tweaks to that set-up to try further improve the buggy.  Asked how he is finding tyre wear now that everyone is saucing their tyres, West Side Raceway his home track, he explain, ‘We have never had to change tyres because this track has never had tyre wear but now with saucing we are seeing tyre wear for the first time’, joking, ‘finally tyre wear at this track.’

Iivonen takes opening ABC qualifier in Jakarta

Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen has TQ’d the opening qualifier at the concluding round of the 2026 Asian Buggy Championships in Jarkata, Indonesia.  The Finn took the first of the five scheduled qualifiers at West Side Raceway ahead of Top Seed Alex Bernadzik, the Team Associated driver 2.7-seconds off the TQ pace after a slow start on new tyres.  Making it three different manufacturers in the Top 3, Sparko’s new FEMCA Champion Jayden Edmunds was a similar margin off his fellow countryman Bernadzik to open with a P3 effort.  While taking the opening TQ in eBuggy ahead of Edmunds with his Team Associated, Hyunkyu Jung encountered traffic on the opening laps of his first nitro qualifier hampering his chances of a double, but it was a costly mistake on the teenager’s penultimate lap that meant the 4th fastest for Q1.  Infinity’s Jason Nugroho upheld home honours as he set the fifth fastest time ahead of the Mugen Seiki of Australian teenager Zac Foster.

Overall pleased with his opening run Iivonen said, ‘I had a couple of smaller mistakes but nothing huge.  The track is more challenging today and definitely has less grip but I was able to make some changes to the car which made it much much better and I think that should be fine for Q2 also.’  With this his second outing of the Asian Buggy Championships’ fourth season, him taking his first overall Nitro TQ earlier this year in Malaysia, Iivonen cautioned that, ‘my tyres are looking a bit worn out so hopefully they will last because I don’t have so many of them.  I will hold a new set for the last qualifier tomorrow.  They tend to wear out when you are using additive.’

Summing up his opening qualifier, Bernadzik said, ‘It started off a bit slow, I had a new set of tyres on and they took a little bit of time to come in but mid to end of the run the car was pretty good.’  Setting the fastest lap of Q1, the Australian continued, ‘I was getting close and then on the last lap I made a couple of silly errors’.  Asked about tyre wear, he replied, ‘It depends.  If I sauce them like everyone else is then the wear is starting to up come up a little bit, so it is going to be something that we are going to keep an eye on.  At the moment it is not too bad.’  On changes for Q2 he said, ‘No, we’ll just run what we’ve run, the car was good yesterday at this time of the afternoon so we’ll just trust it and drive it.’

Giving a run down on his Q1, newly crowned FEMCA Champion Edmunds said it was ‘pretty good, pretty clean, and the car was working well.’  The 20-year-old added, ‘It was lacking a little bit of grip to the other three so I am going to try and find that but the car is really easy to drive, just need to find that last little bit.’  Asked if that missing edge was in the tyres , tyre prep, or car set-up, he said, ‘I think it something in the car that I need to find.  I have been on the same sort of tyre prep, I haven’t really deviated too much, so maybe it is in that (the tyres) but I think it’s safer now to stay with what I have got and continue to work with the car.’

‘I think the pace was there to fight with Pekko for the TQ but I had some traffic and one silly mistake’, was how Jung described his run.  He elaborated by saying, ‘I had one mistake on the right side and that cost me 4-seconds.  Traffic on the first and second laps cost me 2-seconds and I would say I was mentally broken after that.’  He continued, ‘It’s OK, its only Q1 and we have four more rounds.’  On changes to his car for the second & final qualifier of today’s action, the Korean said, ‘My car definitely has the pace so we don’t need to change anything.  We will just go into Q2 and hopefully we have no problem with traffic this time.’

Bernadzik ‘Top Seed’ at Asian Buggy C/ships Finale

Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik is the Top Seed at the season finale of the Asian Buggy Championships in Indonesia, the second round of seeding seeing no improvement in times from the leading contenders.  Fastest yesterday afternoon with a time of 1:23.448 for his 2-fastest consecutive laps, Bernadzik again topped this morning’s second round but in a slower time of 1:24.030.  The Australian reported that compared with running at the similar time yesterday in free practice when his buggy ‘felt good’, this time round it felt ‘a little soft’.  With a break before the start of qualifying here at West Side Raceway, he will wait to see how the temperatures are closers to the first of the 2 qualifying rounds on today’s schedule before making a call on whether to change stiffener up his RC8B4.2.  Again the closest challenger to Bernadzik, while a slower SP2 time team-mate Hyunkyu Jung did get the gap down to 1/10th of a second.  For the round it was Sparko’s Jayden Edmunds who was third fastest almost matching his pace of SP1 but again not an improvement he seeds 4th in the top Nitro heat.  Topping eBuggy seeding with his Cayote powered Mayako, drivers also failing to better Thursday’s time, a set-up change resulted in Pekko Iivonen’s nitro buggy having more understeer and he was fourth fastest but his SP1 time means he seeds P3.

Bernadzik tops first seeding in Indonesia

Alex Bernadzik topped the opening round of seeding at the season finale of the Asian Buggy Championships today in Indonesia, the Australian heading a 1-2 for Team Associated.  Over the 41-seconds West Side Raceway lap, he would have a 4/10ths of a second advantage over team-mate Hyunkyu Jung as each drivers best two consecutive laps were recorded.  A more technical track layout than the Championships’ previous 2024 visit to the dirt track, traffic seemed to be the biggest challenge for drivers in the randomly created seeding groups.  Completing the Top 3 for the first of the two seeding rounds, the second getting Friday’s action underway here in Jakarta, was Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen who was 7/10ths off Bernadzik’s pace.  The Sparko of Jayden Edmunds was next up, the Australia fourth fastest ahead of the Infinity of Jason Nugroho, one of the few drivers not to sauce his tyres, and the Sworkz of fellow Indonesian Adrian Wicaksono.

‘Nitro was definitely good’, was Bernadzik’s response when asked about the first seeding run.  The former Asian Buggy Championships Australia race winner added, ‘My car is really good but still lacking a little bit in mid corner but it was super easy to drive.’  His first time to Indonesia, he continued, ‘I had one mistake but that was just tangling with another car.  The actual run itself was pretty good and I don’t think I made one mistake myself.’  Still running on Hotrace’s Super Soft Sahara tyre in the dusty track conditions, asked about set-up changes for tomorrow, he replied, ‘I am just going to work on my eBuggy because Nitro is fine.  It’s more so tyres and just making sure they are right’.

Asked how he felt the first counting run of the weekend went, Jung said, ‘It wasn’t bad’.  The 16-year-old Korean continued, ‘we ran the same car (set-up) and just tried a different tyre compound.  The tyre is so important here with everyone saucing and doing something on the inserts.  I think I went out with too soft a compound for the conditions then but for tomorrow I think we need to try some other things with our tyre prep.’

Fastest in the first eBuggy seeding run Iivonen summed up his nitro effort with, ‘It was OK, I was in a slower group and there was some drivers who tried to be faster than me so I had some slight problems getting two good laps but my pace wasn’t too bad.’  The new slimmed down Finn, who just recently ran & completed his first half marathon, continued, ‘the car was slighted too soft I would say so I think compared to eBuggy, I was running the same shocks in both, I think I will go stiffer with the nitro for tomorrow.  It was actually rotating a bit better than the eBuggy and that was good but I just need some more stability in my opinion and once I get that it will be quite good.’