Balestri Top Seed at 1:8 World Championships
Dario Balestri has got the defence of his 1:8 Onroad World title off to a strong start by becoming the Top Seed for qualifying at Steel City RC Speedway in California. The Infinity driver capped off today’s seeding practice by posting the fastest time of the day in the fourth & final round with a considerable advantage over second fastest for the round Toni Gruber. Behind the Italian, Naoto Matsukura made it an Infinity 1-2 in seeding being the only other driver to top the time sheets when he went fastest in the third round. Having a tough day by his normal standards, Simon Kurzbuch would manage to complete seeding in the Top 3 but openly admitted the gap to his great rival Balestri was quite a big one. Having surprised with his second fastest time in the opening seeding round, JJ Wang is the 4th seed ahead of young Italian talent Jonathan Gandin with former Champion Tadahiko Sahashi completing the Top 6.
After dropping off the top of the time sheets for the first time in third round of seeding, Balestri’s reaction to his final run was ‘now I am happy the car is perfect. Sometimes you feel you can’t arrive at perfect but now the car is really perfect’. He continued, ‘Don’t ask what I changed on the car because I don’t tell you, but it was the right way’. Asked about consistentcy over the 7-minutes that now counts for qualifying, he replied, ‘Today was only three laps but my car is fast and super consistent which is all you can ask for qualifying’.
Despite crashing out of the final round but luckily having set the 10th fastest time to secure 2nd overall, Matsukura explained, ‘the traction was more high and the car was a little edgy. I couldn’t go full punch and had a mistake in the chicane and hit the wall which broke the car. Also the engine wasn’t so good’. Despite this, the Top Seed on his Onroad nitro Worlds debut two years ago in France declared himself ‘ready for qualifying’ pointing out the first round should have less traction and so he should be OK adding he will also have one of his good engines fitted.
‘Another difficult run’, was Kurzbuch reaction at the conclusion of seeding. The Shepherd driver explained, ‘the track changed that much in the last 2-hours our set-up was not good enough. We need to understand the changes to the track better so that we can have our car right for them’. The reigning ENS Champion, a battle fought out between him and Balestri, he concluded, ‘right now 1st position feels really far from reach but let’s see’.
On his P4 seeding, Wang said he felt while his results following a strong opening round don’t reflect it they ‘made progress’ over the day. The Mugen driver added, ‘we had bad luck some rounds so we didn’t show our real pace but I think we have a good car for qualifying so I will do what I do’. Asked about running the full 7-minutes in qualifying he replied, ‘My full run pace is better than my 3-laps so I think I am ready for tomorrow. Everything with the car seems good now’.
Leaving his best run to last, recording the third fastest time of Round 4, Gandin said making the top heat for qualifying was a ‘real surprise’ and ‘absolutely not expected’. Running a prototype car, the ARC driver who has renowned nitro onroad mechanic Stefano Colombini looking after him in the pitlane, he didn’t change the car set-up during the day but instead tried different positioning of weight in the car each run’. His second 1:8 Worlds appearance, having raced in France, the 16-year-old is confident that he can translate his 3-lap pace into a competitive 7-minute performance.
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