Balestri TQ’s opening qualifier in Japan
Infinity’s Dario Balestri has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship in Japan. Top Qualifier at the last Worlds in 2019, the Italian took the round ahead of Capricorn’s Dominic Greiner as Simon Kurzbuch ran out of fuel on his last lap. The Top Seed after timed practice Kurzbuch looked to be carrying that form into Day 1 of qualifying but having admitted yesterday that the 4-minute run time would be close, this morning it was to cost him the TQ run. Having hinted at his pace in the final practice when he was fourth fastest, Infinity’s Jessie Davis would complete the Top 3 for the first of the 6 rounds of qualifying 0.579 ahead of Toni Gruber. One of the four drivers to top timed practice yesterday, Naoto Matsukura didn’t have a good start to qualifying as he needed to pit after the first 1-minute to have his engine tuned.
The number 3 seed for qualifying, Balestri was much happier with his car set-up today saying, ‘We seem to get the balance good again this morning and so we could get back to work. I had some trouble at the end with traffic but at the end the result was good’. The 2017 World Champion continued, ‘Like I told you yesterday I was confident with the fuel and I could do 2-laps more. This is good for the finals’. Looking to Q2, three rounds of qualifying on today’s schedule, he said he only plans to ‘just adjust the engine a little bit’ but leave the car unchanged.
Running in the second fastest heat having ended up 11th in seeding, an upbeat Greiner summed up Q1 with ‘It was good’. Having struggled with tyre consistency in controlled practice, the German driver said with more consistent tyres in timed practice they found their way with the set-up ending the day with a P6 run over 3-consecutive laps. A confidence boost ahead of qualifying, he said, ‘long distance is always better for me than 3-laps and over 4-minutes it felt good, so I knew we could go well today’. Making a small change to his car for Q1, he said ‘it was not better’ and he will go back to the previous set-up for Q2. Asked about run time, the former 1:10 World Champion said, ‘I made an extra lap so it looks good, it was better than expected’.
‘A good solid first run’, was Davis’ reaction to his P3 for Q1. The Australian, who started 3rd on the grid at the last Worlds in the US, said he knew yesterday he had good car and four minute pace so he ‘just put in a good engine for today and made fuel’. An O.S Engines team driver, he said, ‘I got an extra lap so we are pretty set for fuel’. For his next qualifier he plans to leave his IF18 III the same adding ‘hopefully I’ll have better traffic this run’.
Gruber summed up his opening P4 effort as ‘overall not a bad run’. The newly crowned 1:8 GT World Champion continued, ‘for sure it was difficult to know how the fuel is so I drive a little easy but everything worked’. He would have a last lap moment that cost him a potential Top 3 but explained, ‘Simon ran out of fuel and was on the racing line, Dario was right behind me so I opened the door for him to save my run’. Looking to Q2 he said, ‘we had a lot of fuel left so I can push a little bit more now that we know the fuel consumption. I also hope for no traffic.’
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