Hamon sets early pace at GT World Championship
Serpent’s Jeff Hamon is the early pace setter in practice at the IFMAR 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney, Australia. Winner of the Worlds Warm-up Race back in April when the final was rained off, the Australian set his fastest 3-consecutive laps ahead of Hong Nor’s Toni Gruber – Hamon’s best run coming in the cool conditions of the morning first practice while Gruber’s best came in the 31 degree heat of the fourth of the 6 rounds on today’s schedule. IGT8 boss Paolo Morganti sits third fastest with European GT Champion Bernard-Alain Arnaldi making it four different manufacturer at the top of the timing sheets driving his Genius Racing chassis. With visiting drivers trying to get their heads around the low grip levels at the John Grant International Raceway track, which hosted the 1:8 Onroad World Championship back in 2001, European GT Championship Top Qualifier Andrea Catanzani sits fifth fastest ahead of the Sworkz of reigning World Champion Joern Neumann, who like fellow countryman Gruber found improvement in CP4.
Summing up his performance Hamon said, ‘everything is good, the car is good, the engine is good. We are running through the program’. That said he did admit there was a ‘but’. Running Serpent’s narrower but thicker optional chassis on his car, he said while it is giving him more consistency and good speed it is also working the tyres more and concerned about tyre wear he will revert back to the standard chassis ahead of the chassis needing to be officially marked for tomorrow’s seeding rounds. Asked about the grip levels, he replied, ‘it’s loose but for us that normal, it was identical to this at the Warm-up Race’.
‘Pretty difficult’ was Gruber’s response when asked how things were going. He continued, ‘I drive only one race this year with this car and the final was rained off. We also didn’t have much testing due to my ENS campaign so we had less time to prepare than we normally do’. Crowned the new ENS 1:8 Champion last weekend, on his GT car he said, ‘the base set-up is really good but it is trying to learn how the car works the tyres and the diffs. That last run was really good so I think we are on a good way and we will continue to try something every run to try improve more’.
Asked about his opening practice runs, Morganti replied, ‘we’re making progress’. Racing under the Costa Rica flag here in Australia, the former US international 1:8 Onroad front runner continued, ‘the grip is super weird. It is like driving on oil. You get somewhere decent with the set-up and then you make just a small change but it sends the car completely in the wrong way. You need to look outside the box but it is the same for everyone.’
Arnaldi said he is struggling to find a good balance on his car. The French driver commented, ‘the grip is not very good and the tyres are a little harder in front than what I would normally use. We have to use the same front and rear tyre for this event’. Having ‘changed a lot’ on his car, he said it is difficult to fully understand the changes you make as the conditions have changed each run, ‘it was cool in the morning and not it is 31 degrees.’
18-year-old Catanzani described his early pace as ‘not bad’. The Italian Serpent driver said while he likes the track layout the lack of grip presents its challenges. Coming here with the same set-up as he used at the European Championship in Croatia where he said the grip was also low, it didn’t work here and they have changed the car ‘a lot’ to get it to work. Running the same set of tyres in the first four rounds, he is looking forward to a fresh set of tyres for the final two runs of the day to see if he can improve his time given the set-up changes they have made to the car.
Asked how his return to the GT class was going, his last race being the inaugural World Championship in 2019, Neumann said, ‘we found a good balance for the long run that last one’. The German added, ‘the tyres don’t last long, they are too soft for this track so you have to get the right balance between speed and tyre wear. It is hard to judge what speed everyone has because you don’t know how they are running the tyres but I think for now everything is quite OK for us’.