Rheinard takes Q4 to hold overnight TQ in Beijing
Reigning World Champion Marc Rheinard holds the overnight TQ at the 1:12 World Championships after he became the fourth different driver to top the times on the opening day of qualifying in Beijing. Second fastest in the opening two rounds but retiring from Q3, the Yokomo driver finally took the day’s final qualifier after battles with both Naoto Matsukura and Akio Sobue, Sobue taking the fight to the line finishing 0.152 off the German. Having allowed Rheinard into contention for a TQ run with two smaller mistakes, Matsukura would make bigger mistakes trying to retake control eventually pulling off in the final minute after a mistake that saw him cut the track. With Matsukura out of the picture there were plenty more Japanese drivers in waiting with Hayato Ishioka finishing the day with his best run to complete the Top 3 ahead of Hideo Kitazawa who topped the previous round and holds 3rd overall behind Sobue.
While pleased to finish off the day with a TQ, Rheinard wasn’t celebrating a break through in performance saying, ‘Naoto is the fastest but he just crashes too much’. The German added, ‘I’m not sure how the other cars look to drive but for sure mine is not good, it’s so hard to drive’. Getting to run behind his Tamiya Touring car team-mate Sobue for a few laps, he said the Japanese driver’s CRC chassis with which he took his World title looks to have ‘really good rear traction’. With two rounds of qualifying left and grid position seen to be key to the final with drivers agreeing the track layout offers few place for overtaking, Rheinard said, the pressure is now on him to get results tomorrow, him being Matsukura who has P8 as one of counting three rounds and currently sits fifth overnight. In terms of his Muchmore powered YRX12, 3-time Touring Car World Champion said the plan for tomorrow was to ‘leave the car the same as today and just keep going’.
‘Maximum close’ was how Sobue summed up qualifying so far as he has the same points as Rheinard but sits second due to Rheinard having the fastest race time from his Q4 TQ. While running somewhat under the shadows of Rheinard in touring car, Sobue’s aim is the overall TQ adding, ‘I need one more (TQ) run’. On Q4, the ETS podium finisher said the traction was a little higher causing his prototype CRC to understeer adding as a result of this it was ‘not so fast as before’. Looking to the morning’s Q5, he said the current set-up should work fine but after that for the final qualifier they ‘need to see how the track conditions are looking’.
Declaring himself ‘happy’ to be sitting 3rd overnight, 2014 podium finisher Kitazawa said while his Morotech was ‘very good’ in Q4 the driver was less so. Suffering a ‘driver mistake’, the 12th stalwart and multiple World Championship finalist said his biggest focus for tomorrow was to ‘get more sleep’ in the hope of having ‘better concentration’. With all the drivers travelling between the hotel and the track by official bus this morning the 06:30 pick up had a lot of drivers looking the worse for the early start as they left the track on the 19:00 return bus.
Putting his Q4 performance down to a set-up change that gave his CRC more steering allowing him to push harder, Ishioka said while it was a good finish to the day with a Top 3 he was aiming to be placed higher than the fourth he holds overnight. The Japanese National Champion, who was tipped by many as being a title challenger based on recent form, said tomorrow he will run bigger diameter tyres with the aim of having an easy car with which to finish out the 8-minutes.
Becoming the only driver to record an 11-second lap in qualifying, posting an 11.972 in Q4, Matsukura said, ‘the car is ok I just push too hard’. A driver renowned for his maximum attack driver style since he won the first of his 3-World title in 2008 aged just 15, the now 22-year-old said ‘maybe he needs to take a different approach tomorrow’. With his Roche prototype becoming ‘super difficult after 4-minutes’, most drivers having such difficulties over the closing minutes of the qualifier, he said he would try make the car easier to drive but admitted there is maybe something to be gained from he himself managing the advantage he seems to be able to build up in the first half of the heat.
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