Greiner tops WC free practice with impressive final run
After 2 days and 12 rounds of free practice at the 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championship in Gubbio Italy an impressive final run by Dominic Greiner put the Serpent driver top of the times sheets. With the day’s opening practice providing the best conditions for setting a fast time, Greiner would complete just one lap as he suffered an engine failure. With the times dropping off as track temperatures went up over the day, after a second engine failure in the penultimate round Greiner would put together 3-consecutive laps in the final practice to top Simon Kurzbuch FP7 topping time by 0.08 of a second despite conditions not being as good as the morning, Kurzbuch’s FP12 time over 3/10ths off his best. The only driver in the Top 24 to better his time in the final practice, Greiner would be fastest in the round from Dario Balestri and Alessio Mazzeo by 3/10ths of a second, the biggest margin seen over the day’s six runs.
Top Qualifier at the last World Championships, Greiner started out the day not overall pleased with his car sitting only P8 afte the first two runs. Describing his car as ‘very good the run before until the engine broke’, the German said they ‘changed nothing just changed the engine and the car was awesome’. While the setting sun made driving ‘difficult’ due to the shadows created by the low light he said apart from that the run was ‘very very good’. Initially feeling conditions for the final practice where similar to the morning’s rocket round but having only completed one lap, he was happy to be corrected by team-mate Mark Green who said ‘the track was definitely not as good as this morning’. Describing ending the day at the top of the times as ‘a good boost for tomorrow’ when the event officially gets underway with four rounds of controlled practice he said he is ‘super happy with the car’. On the engine front his mechanic said the focus for those four controlled runs has to be on engines. Having run in 9 conrods for the event and already had two failures they hope they are not dealing with a bad batch and that these were just two isolated failures. Novarossi will rebuild both his engines in time for racing and will send a new batch of conrods and Greiner is now confident they have found the problem and ‘all is safe for tomorrow’.
Capping off the day with a P5 time in the final practice, Kurzbuch said it was ‘again a good round’ but like Geiner said the shadows at the end of the straight ‘made it dificult’. Ending free practice second fastest overall, the reigning 1:8 World Champion said his Velox V10 ‘setup is good but the driver can improve more’. Describing his pace as ‘very consistent’ the Swiss driver is ‘ready for qualifying’ adding he will use the four controlled practices tomorrow to ‘try more engines just to make sure everything is perfect for racing’.
After in depth looking discussions with Capricorn boss Patrizio Rossi after the conclusion of free practice, Balestri summed up his day by saying ‘our car is not perfect for cooler conditions’. Coming across less confident than earlier in the day despite being second fastest to Greiner in FP12, the Warm-up Race winner admitted ‘it was a good time from Dominic’ but added, ‘we have more practice tomorrow so all is ok, the race still hasn’t started’.
Third fastest in the final free practice, getting to within 6/100ths of his best time from FP7 that leaves him sixth overall, Alessio Mazzeo declared ‘I’m really happy for the set-up we have reached’. The Warm-up Race podium finisher said they found a ‘good compromise’ that left his Serpent ‘good from the start to the finish of the run’. The 2013 European Champion said he was also ‘happy for the team that Dominic was fastest’ continuing ‘tomorrow we start the race and I’m really happy with our pace’. He added, ‘we always need more steering but we made it better for the last one’. However the Italian concluded he ‘prefer(s) (running in) hot conditions’ as this is when his 748 is at its best highlighted by him topping the times of the hotter penultimate round of practice from Balestri and Greiner.
Backing up his fastest time for FP9 & 10 when the track was at it’s hottest, Luca Redaelli ended the day with a P4 for the final practice. His first World Championships, the 25-year-old Capricorn driver said the event is ‘already good for me’ adding he was very pleased with FP12 time as he had switched to a spare engine believing that with his ‘good engine’ there was another 3/10ths or more in the car. ‘Happy with where (he) is at’ in terms of his pace and car set-up he said his only complaint was ending the day 11th overall causing him to just miss the top heat when the heat size will be reduced from 13 to 10 cars for controlled practice.
Classified 5th overall just behind Mugen’s Robert Pietsch, Bruno Coelho would conclude practice with a P6 for the final run just ahead of Pietsch. Leading the way for defending champions Xray, as reigning champion Alexander Hagberg still finds himself somewhat off the pace, Coelho would ‘try a crazy set-up’ for the last practice which while making his Max powered NT1 ‘super difficult’ to drive may have given them a set-up route to follow for controlled practice. With the car ‘fast’ he said he hopes they can make it easy to drive tomorrow.
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