Greiner hits the top at World Championships
We might have had to wait an extra day for the qualifying action to start at the 1:8 World Championship but the first three rounds have certainly delivered variety with Dominic Greiner the latest driver to put in a TQ run. Having not even featured in Q1 with the 22nd fastest time, in Q2 the Serpent driver made a huge leap forward with a P2 thanks to the set-up of team-mate Jeff Hamon and now the former 1:10 World Champion has become the third different driver to TQ. While he topped the fastest group, top seed Dario Balestri again had to settle for second with team-mate Jesse Davis completing the Top 3. JJ Wang improved on a strong showing in the morning to set the fourth fastest time, his best so far, followed by Hamon and Dutch driver Rick Vrielijnck. Having TQ’d the previous qualifier, Simon Kurzbuch return to form was short lived as he would suffer a stripped belt after just two laps. Impressing in seeding putting himself in the fastest heat, young Italian Jonathan Gandin looked set for a Top 3 run as he swapped times with Balestri until he ran out of fuel on his final lap.
‘It’s getting better but I’m still not super happy with the set-up’, was Greiner’s reaction to his TQ run. Having switched to Hamon’s set-up for Q2 and continued with it for Q3, the German continued, ‘I still have to learn how the car is, it’s just my driving. We will check the camber in the tyres but I am scared to touch it (the set-up). 1mm somewhere and it could be worse. It could also be better but I think now it is best to focus on my driving to suit the car I have’.
A somewhat bemused Balestri said, ‘now it was lean. I don’t know what is happening today, the engines stopped working’. Missing out on potential TQ runs due to his engine being too rich in the opening two qualifier, the Infinity driver now plans to use a different engine for the days final qualifying run.
Notching up three good point hauls over the first half of qualifying, on his third for Round 3 Davis said, ‘I had luck in that one. Again we were a little off in the set-up, the car was safe and easy but a few top guys were not so fast and I was lucky to get third. The engine was rich too, so down on power’. Making Super Pole at the previous World Championship in France, the Australian said, ‘we will make changes again to try make the car more aggressive so it’s a little faster on the lap times, without flipping of course’.
The host Nations top contender at this year’s Worlds, a content Wang said, ‘It going pretty good. I’m pretty consistent today. The track is changing each run but my car is working good. We are making minor tweaks here and there for that’. The Mugen driver, who has an 8th, 6th and 4th, continued, ‘we have three good ones in so I think I’m going to push it on a little more in the next one’.
Summing up his latest effort, Hamon said, ‘the car is working excellent but the traffic is horrid. One dude got called twice but still didn’t move’. Leaving his car unchanged from the previous round when he was also 5th fastest, the Australian plans to make some changes for the last run of today saying, ‘Now that I have three results in I can try a few things out’.
View the complete event results here.
View our event image gallery here.