Hagberg TQs opening qualifier in Thailand

Alexander Hagberg took a somewhat surprise TQ run in the opening qualifier of the 200mm World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, the round seeing all of the Top 10 from practice having difficult runs.  Running in the second fastest heat having been 11th in practice, the Xray driver set the fastest 5-minute time by just under a second from the Serpents of Dominic Greiner and Tadahiko Sahashi, the Top 6 for Q1 all running in the same group.  An incident filled top heat would go to Mark Green but suffering a body tuck after contact with Teemu Leino, the Serpent driver’s time would only be good enough for 11th.  The top seed for qualifying having topped timed practice, Leino would end up 13th.  Defending Champion Meen Vejrak would roll his KM resulting in tyre damage that left him struggle to 36th.

‘Surprisingly good’ was how Hagberg summed up his run.  Changing the set-up on his Orcan powered NT1, giving the car a softer front end, the Swede said this worked out well.  While struggling for pace over the 3-consecutive lap format used to determine the seeding for the heats, he said he was confident that over 5-minutes his pace would be better but ‘not as good’ as it turned out.

Reverting back to the set-up he arrived in Thailand with, which he said was nearly impossible to drive out the pitlane without traction rolling, Greiner said with the track conditions now completely different it actually worked pretty good.  With his mechanic & the 748’s designer Michael Salven describing the change as a ‘wild guess’ he said they came ‘close’ and with some adjustments they will go into Q2 with a lot more confidence.  Describing the set-up as ‘overall OK’, Greiner said they need to try to make it a little safer with the car having ‘maybe too much steering’ but compared with where they where at yesterday he is a lot happier.

While netting a Top 3 run, having ended up 14th in practice, reigning 1:8 World Champion Tadahiko Sahashi wasn’t overly pleased with the performance of his 748.  The Japanese ace said while the run was clean he really struggled with understeer and he has no choice but to change his set-up for Q2.  Having been the faster of the two brothers throughout practice, Yuya would have a terrible first round, a number of rolls eventually resulting in him finishing one position in front of Vejrak with the rear wing hanging off the back of his 748.

HB’s Andy Moore would take his Maxima powered R10 to the fourth fastest time.  The former electric touring car World Champion said he ‘wasn’t really fast enough’ but he ‘cruised around with no mistakes’ and he got rewarded.  Describing the car as ‘too easy to drive’ he said this turned out to be ‘not a bad thing’ as others with faster cars ended up crashing.  Looking to ‘free up (his) car a bit’ he will make a change to reduce the high level of rear grip the car has.

Setting the fastest lap of the opening qualifier, team-mate Leino said his Novarossi powered R10 ‘was still good’ but it was ‘just a shit run’.  The Finn had two incidents. Suffering a traction rolling and a crash he said the latter was simply driver error.  For Q2, the 2012 Top Qualifier plans to run his car unchanged.

Owner of this year’s World Championship host track Huge RC Circuit, Surikarn Chaidajsuriya took his Mugen to fifth despite describing his MTX-6 as being unbalanced.  One of three former electric touring car World Champions contesting the event, he said in right turns the car was good but it struggled on turning left.  Hugely affecting his consistency he suspects the problem could be with unmatched shock lengths.

Fastest Shepherd in Q1, former 1:8 World Championship finalist Simon Kurzbuch described his drive to the sixth fastest time as a ‘good safe run’.  The recently crowned Euro Nitro Series 1:8 Champion, who is somewhat a 1:10 novice, said while it was a good start to get decent points on the board, the overall set-up of both his Velox V10 and his clutch ‘still needs work’.

17-year-old Takumi Matsuda, who is running in Heat 9 of 11, would take his Xray to the seventh fastest time.  Changing engine for the first qualifier he said the new Picco had much better power than that of the one he ran in timed practice.  Pleased to have more power, the Japanese driver said understeer was his problem today and for Q2 he will make a front camber change to his NT1.

A former 200mm World Champion Top Qualifier, Team Shepherd’s Jilles Groskamp would open qualifying with the 8th fastest time.  The Dutch racer, who is now based in Bangkok, said he completely changed the set-up on his Velox V10 and it ‘wasn’t so good’.  Starting off fast and running ahead of Hagberg early on, he said he had to back off as the car started to lift the back wheel off the ground.  Flipping with 3-laps to go, he said this lost him a potential Top 3 run but still with 4 of 6 rounds to count and a lot of drivers having problems he was happy to take 8th.  With a lot of drivers having run time issues he said that was one area he didn’t have to worry about with his Maxima engine and he hoped to improve his car by changing shocks for Q2.

Green said everything was the same as yesterday with his Novarossi powered 748 but the run just didn’t work out.  Starting the qualifier 4th, the British driver would find himself stuck in traffic and then have a recovering Leino on his bumper despite leading on the timing screen.  With a car in front of Green and Leino behind, the HB driver would end up hitting the back of the Serpent driver causing the body to tuck and stopping to get it fixed the lap would see him lose almost 5-seconds.

Although he ran out of fuel with 2-laps to go, Capricorn’s Dario Balestri was very positive about how his car ran. On a potential TQ pace before his engine cut, he described his LAB C03 as ‘perfect’.  While his XRD engine was set a little rich he said even with the correct carburation the Italian said this wouldn’t make up two laps.  Initially planning to change engine and fit it with a smaller venturi and further inspection of the car it was discovered the fuel tank was leaking so a new one should rectify the problem.

Vejrak said his HK-1 was really good as was his engine, thanks to better gearing, but it was all let down by ‘my mistake’.  Clipping the curbing in the final minute of the qualifier, the Thai driver would roll losing over 2-seconds.  However with the incident chunking both rear tyres he would have to struggle for three more laps, all in the 15 seconds compared to his best of 14.4, for a round that he hopes will be one of his two throw outs.

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