Kurzbuch is Top Seed in Japan
Simon Kurzbuch is the Top Seed at the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship, the Mugen Seiki driver setting the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the day in the fourth & final round of timed practice in a great battle with Capricorn’s Toni Gruber. The duo swapped position at the top of the timing screens, their engine tuner Daniele Ielasi finding it hard to keep up with which of drivers was currently fastest, but at the end of the 7-minutes it was Kurzbuch who was 2/10ths faster than Gruber. That time would give the very much back in form 2015 World Champion the tiebreaker in the final seeding points ranking as himself and Gruber both count a P1 & P2 each. Fastest in the second round, Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura would put himself out of contention for the confidence boosting Top Seed status when he crashed out just before the final 2 and a half minutes of the run which is when the times start to tumble. Another contender, having topped Round 3, Dario Balestri could not match the lead pace and finished with the third fastest time just ahead of Infinity team-mate Jesse Davis. Overall that would seed Balestri third.
‘It was really good, finally! The one before was not my best run due to my driving error but now I am really, really happy’, was how Kurzbuch summed up the final practice. The Swiss ace continued, ‘the car is good and my engine was amazing and I made everything right on the driving side. Top Seed feels a good way to start into qualifying’. With the attention now turning to 4-minute runs for qualifying, asked if he had any concerns about the qualifying run time his response was, ‘I think it is really tight for everyone. We will need to manage it over the run and have a good feeling for the engine limits to ensure you get to the 4-minutes’.
‘I have a sad face and a happy face’, was Gruber’s reaction to his performance. He continued, ‘We could see from the two groups before us that the track is fast and I wanted to see for myself where we are on a fast track. We tested a new engine so we needed a little extra time to get that set correct and I was also on new tyres which need time to break in. I thought I had done enough as I heard I was fastest but then Simon got me with a faster time. This way I’m not so happy. But when I look at the gang of drivers behind it was still a good performance’.
Commenting on his performance, Balestri made it clear he feels he has some catching up to do to run with Kurzbuch and Gruber. The Italian said, ‘we still need to find something in the set-up.’ He continued, ‘an important thing is we break in tyres today so that we have set ready for every round of qualifying’. Asked about run time and if he would have to manage his driving style to make the 4-minutes, the back to back reigning European Champion replied with a confused look, ‘No, run time is no problem so no need’. Surprised to hear other drivers believe it will be tight to the finish, the Max Power Engines driver said, ‘It is no problem for us to go more than 4-minute’.
Explaining his crash Matsukura said, ‘I had done two good laps but pushed a little too much and then crashed. I have made many mistakes at the same spot so it something I need to fix for tomorrow’. Ending up fourth seed ahead of defending World Champion Shoki Takahata, he is confident that he has a car he can challenge with and a good engine to power it having put that aside after topping second practice. He shared the concerns of Kurzbuch on run time saying it is going to be ‘super close’ meaning we might see a repeat of the opening round of qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championships when lots of driver came to halt on their final lap.
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