New champion to be crowned as Collari fails to finish Semi

An all new 1:8 Onroad World Champion will be crowned at the Homestead RC Raceway in Miami, Florida, this evening after Lamberto Collari’s campaign for a fifth consecutive title came to an end in the Semi final.  The Italian, who bumped up from this morning’s 1/4 final went out when his Novarossi engine dropped a plug 12 minutes into the 30 minute race.  The 9-time World Champion rejoined but his Kyosho stopped a number of times out on the track before his team called an end to their 2011 event at the 2/3 distance.

Having controlled the first half of the final Team Shepherd’s Daniele Ielasi looked set to go bump up but there was to be heartbreak for the popular Italian.  Entering the the pits for his final stop he hit the boards both on the entry and exit of the pitlane knocking one side of his steering linkage off causing him to crash the Picco powered Velox V8.   Putting the former 200mm World Champion out of the event, the clearly deflated Ielasi said afterwards it was the mistake a novice would make and right now he feels he would be better off giving up racing and trying his hand at fishing instead.

Mugen driver Takehiro Terauchi went on to take an easy victory and with Ielasi out Shinya Shimazaki finished second to guarantee himself a place on the grid of the 1-hour World title deciding race, which will start an hour late due to time being called in the warm-up of both Semi finals.

The second of the Semi finals saw Michael Salven call for a 10-minute delay after his Serpent suffered radio interference.  The resulting crash damaged the front bumper and destroyed his race body forcing him to revert to a spare.  Changing the receiver pack to try solve the radio problem, it was all to be in vain as the car went straight on into the boards when the German left the pitlane for the restarted warm-up putting the 966 designer out of the event before the race had even got to the starting grid.

With nine cars taking to the start the rate of attrition was to be very high with only four cars left running at the end of the 30-minutes.  2006 1:10 Onroad World Champion Keisuke Fukuda took an easy win bringing the total number of Japanese in the final to 5 drivers.  A dropped plug cost Paolo Morganti a bump position meaning there is no Serpent in this year’s final.

Starting last on the grid having bumped up twice from yesterday’s 1/8, Paul Lemieux took second to ensure Xray are finalists on their 1:8 Onroad Worlds debut.

The final two drivers to make the World’s Top 10, thanks to their faster race times from the first Semi, are Beglian Robin D’Hondt and Switzerland’s Simon Kurzbuch.  A finalist in Lostallo 2 years ago, D’Hondt is the sole Motonica while Kurzbuch makes it in to the final for the first time for both himself and Team Shepherd bringing the total number of manufacturers in with a chance of the 18th IFMAR World crown to six.

Final starting grid
1. Robert Pietsch (D) – Mugen/Novarossi
3. Atsushi Hara (JP) – Mugen/OS
3. Dario Balestri (IT) – Capricorn/Novarossi
4. Takaaki Shimo (JP) – Kyosho/OS
5. Keisuke Fukuda (JP) – Mugen/Novarossi
6. Takehiro Terauchi (JP) – Mugen/Novarossi
7. Shinya Shimazaki (JP) – Mugen/Novarossi
8. Robin D’Hondt (BE) – Motonica/Gi-Mar
9. Paul Lemieux (US) – Xray/Max – OL
10.Simon Kurzbuch (CH) – Shepherd/Max

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