Gruber tops first time practice in Japan
Toni Gruber has topped the opening round of timed practice at the 1:8 Onroad World Championship in Japan. The Capricorn driver’s fastest 3-consecutive laps around the Infinity International RC Speedway gave him a 3/10th of a second advantage over his closest rival, the same margin of time then covering the next 7-drivers. Better known for his electric onroad exploits, it was Hayato Ishioka who was second fastest driving a Mugen with factory Mugen driver Simon Kurzbuch completing the Top 3. The best represented brand at this year’s World Championship with over half the field running the Japanese manufacturer’s car, it was Naoto Matsukura who lead their charge with P4 for the first of today’s scheduled four seeding rounds. Just 1/100th off, Serpent young gun Andrea Catanzani, who was up in the second last year to go on track, kick his day off with a P5 ahead of Dario Balestri and reigning World Champion Shoki Takahata.
While happy to top the times, Gruber was less happy with his car set-up. The German explained, ‘we made a little set-up change after the last practice yesterday and it was not helpful. Overall the car is now faster but it’s difficult to drive’. He continued, ‘it’s not bad compared to the other guys but if we can find a fix for the rear being loose we can be even faster but it’s a balancing act as we don’t want end up with a car that is too easy drive but is slow’.
A World Championship finalist in both 1:12 and Electric Touring Car, this is Ishioka 1:8 Onroad Worlds debut. Only in his fourth season of nitro racing, the 28-year-old was pleased with his 3-laps but admitted the 7-minute run did contain a number of driver errors. A Rush team driver, about his car he said while the overall feeling was good he did have to deal with a ‘little understeer’ and based on that will make a small change for his next run.
‘It was quite a good round’, was how Kurzbuch summed up his first effort. Like Ishioka, the former World Champion reported having suffered from ‘a bit of understeer’ adding that considering this it was ‘a really good time’. Also pleased with how his Mugen feels from the start on opening tyres he said in terms of the car they will just make small adjustments for the conditions at the time of the next run. Having already built up data on all his engines during the previous four days pf practice, he said they are going to use the seeding rounds to cycle back through the engines and run qualifying simulations on each of them in preparation for tomorrow.
Naoto described the first timed practice as ‘so, so’. The 2018 1:10 Nitro Car World Champion, said his engine tuning was off with the car putting out ‘too much smoke’. Starting on the new tyres he said they didn’t get the tuning right for when they tyres got smaller and that was the reason for the engine being too rich. Report a little understeer, the Japanese driver is pleased with the overall feeling of his car and is confident that with the engine set better he can be quicker.
Fresh from his podium finish at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney, Catanzani is really enjoying the track here in Japan saying it is ‘so good’ to drive. On his car’s performance, the 18-year-old said, ‘All is ok. The car is good now so if we make any changes they will be little to adjust for the track conditions. We will run the same engine again in the next one and then after that change to a different one’.
‘The track today seems different, it’s more loose’, was Balestri’s response when asked about his run to the 6th fastest time. He continued, ‘It was not a clear run for me. My set-up was not for the conditions so I need to renew it for the next one. It’s just small changes I need to make’.
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