Hagberg sets early pace
After three days of untimed free practice, controlled practice is now underway here in Gubbio with 1:10 200mm Euros debutant Alexander Hagberg setting the early pace. Hagberg is an established electric touring car racer but has quickly adapted to nitro racing having only started in the class this year. The Swede set a fastest lap time of 15.939 to top the times sheets from young Italian Biagio Spataro who posted a 15.999. Hagberg said his Max powered Xray was perfect this morning and feels a Top 5 placing in qualifying is very possible now. Running Matrix tyres on dish wheels he will now try a softer wheel for his next run. 15-year-old Spataro made a number of changes to his car for this morning including lowering the rear diff oil and switching to a lightweight Blitz body. The Xray/JP driver said the car felt really fast and the bodyshell made it easier to drive. Making it three Xray’s at the top was Spanish National Championship front runner Inaki Pahissa Lopez (16.016). One of the late arrivals at the track, only getting here on Tuesday, he said his car felt really easy to drive and other than trying different shores tyres he will leave the set-up the same for his next run.
Fourth fastest was former double European Junior Champion Kyle Branson (16.028). Driving his Sirio powered Serpent 733 the British National Champion said the car felt pretty good but he might play around with tyres next time out. Fifth fastest was another of the Sirio team drivers Dino Giacalone (16.060) at the controls of an Xray.
Warm Up race winner and one of the pre event favourites Giuseppe D’Angelo (16.085) completed the Top 6. The Italian ran a brand new Mugen MTX-4R which he has built up as his race car with final settings on it. Happy with the set-up he will now revert to his test car for the remainder of the day.
Elsewhere defending Champion Dario Balestri had a difficult run after changing the set-up on his Novarossi powered Team Magic. The Italian didn’t run a transponder but said the big changes made the car terrible to drive and he will revert back to yesterday’s set up. Other big names not running transponders were Francesco Tironi, Teemu Leino and Adrien Bertin. Tironi used the run to test a brand new Mugen chassis which wasn’t perfect. Leino wasn’t giving anything away but we get the feeling the flying Finn is there or there abouts in terms of pace. Former World Champion Bertin said he changed the set-up on his Kyosho but the result was a car that was traction rolling. World Champion Daniele Ielasi (16.481), who is debuting the new Shepherd Velox V10, had a troubled run. Running an Xray gearbox on the car he couldn’t get it to work and is now busy fitting a Kyosho gearbox to the car.
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