Collari TQs opening round at Lostallo
With a CV like his it’s no big surprise that defending World Champion Lamberto Collari has opened qualifying for the 2009 IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship with a TQ run. Having ended up 140th in practice yesterday, the Team Kyosho driver said ‘thats a little better’ after posting his 29/10:08.301 run. The Italian who is chasing his ninth World title here this week in Switzerland said he will change the set-up on his Novarossi powered Evolva to try and make it easier to drive for today’s other qualifier.
Second fastest was Serpent’s Mark Green. ‘Car good, engine good, driver wobbly’ was how the British driver described the run in which he actually passed Collari only to out break himself and send his 966 into a spin. Also having a less than perfect first fuel stop, Green said there is plenty of room for improvement but is happy to open qualifying with second fastest.
Shepherd driver Marco Muller said the hot conditions had made his Velox a little more difficult to drive compared with yesterday, but the Swiss ace still managed to post the third fastest time. He also reported two messy entries to the pitlane when he rode heavily over the chicane markers at the start of the pit lane.
Vice World Champion Andrea Cristiani was a bit more upbeat about his pace today despite having to run the qualifier with a chunked rear tyre. A mistake in the warm-up damaged the tyre and during the 10 minutes this meant the car was a little nervous to drive in the corners. The Italian Serpent team driver still managed a Top 4 time which provisionally put him in a direct Main Final qualification position although times are expected to drop considerably in Q3 when the faster drivers will run in the cooler morning conditions.
Japanese ace Yuya Sahashi was ‘not happy yet’ with his run to fifth saying his Max engine was too rich with it almost cutting out as he left the pitlane following his fuel stops. The former Japanese National Champion said his 966 is handling well and with the engine set better he is confident he can make big improvements in his time. Former World Champion Adrien Bertin completed the Top 6 with his Team Orion powered Kyosho. The Frenchman said his car felt good but in the second half of the run his Orion Alpha engine went very rich causing his lap times to drop off around 2/10th but overall he was pleased to have one solid run under his belt.
Elsewhere a number of front runners hit problems. Practice pace setter Robert Pietsch, whose time yesterday was quicker than Collari’s TQ time, ran out of fuel after his pitman made too fast a stop and didn’t fully fill the tank in the factory Mugen. The German said his car was perfect and he was quick recording the fastest lap for the round with a 20.092. Michael Salven suffered brake failure during his second pitstop which injured the hand of his pitman Bertram Risse. Such was the force of the impact his hand broke the top of the fuel tank and Risse has been taken to hospital with the injury. Current Japanese Champion and Kyosho factory driver Shimo Takaaki suffered engine problems and didn’t complete a lap. European Champion Jernej Vuga got a stop/go penalty for bad refuelling but the Slovenian driver said his Mugen was not handling well today. Worlds ‘Warm Up’ race winner Alberto Picco, who is working on a one stop strategy, just missed out on achieving his goal when his Picco engine running dry on his refuelling in-lap. The Italian said he will run a two stop strategy in the next heat to get a safe time on the time sheets but after that will go back to single stops.
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