Wonder kid still the man
The temperatures are souring here in Gubbio with it now 37 degrees in the shade but still hottest thing on the track remains the Xray of Biagio Spataro (15.956). The youngster said his car has started to develop oversteer on the fast corners and that the chassis was also rubbing on the ground. For the final controlled practice he now plans to run larger diameter tyres as well as reducing front camber from 2 to 1.5. Second fastest was Manuel Huber (15.998). The Austrian is running a modified Xray chassis which he said is running very consistently now after a number of small set-up changes. Happy with the set-up he may sit out the last practice preferring instead to go to the pool to cool down a little.
Third fastest, after a clean run, was Alexander Hagberg (16.010). The Swede tried a spoked set of Matrix wheels which he found gave him more steering and was also happier now with the setting on his Max engine. Just 6/100th behind him was another Max powered Xray driven by Italian Gorgio De Felici (16.016) who described his Matrix shod car as ‘perfect’.
Heading the times for the Serpent team was he 733’s designer Michael Salven (16.133). The German suffered an engine cut on his Mega ZX engine after changing the head shims and will revert back to the original clearance he was using. A switch to a custom painted version of the Blitz Altis bodyshell Salven found the car was now understeering despite the body being identically mounted as his all orange practice shell. Team Magic driver Mario Spiniello (16.133) completed the Top 6. The Italian said that after three days of suffering from traction roll he has finally got a good set-up on his G4RS 09 and other than a slight change to the shock preload he will leave the car the same for the last practice of the day and focus on his driving.
Mark Green (16.143) was seventh fastest after changing the shock angles on his 733 which made the car easier to drive. The Englishman thinks with his engine set right the car is capable of consistent 16 second flat lap times. Running Novarossi’s 353 engine it has been running rich despite the temp gun reading 120 but it looks like they prefer to run at 150 and now for the final run he will tune it based on feeling rather than going by the temp gun.
Defending Champion Dario Balestri (16.330) continues to be somewhat off the pace but the Team Magic driver endured a similar run in Madrid before getting it all together on the Sunday to claim his second European title. The main problem for the Italian appears to now be with tyres.
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