Kurzbuch finally delivers TQ run in Q4
After a difficult first day of qualifying in Japan, Top Seed Simon Kurzbuch finally delivered on his speed with the Mugen Seiki driver taking the TQ for the fourth round of 6 at the 1:8 Onroad World Championship. The 2015 World Champion would be more than 1.4 seconds quicker than his closest rival Yuya Sahashi as the first of the day’s three qualifiers saw a number of drivers in the top have issues. Infinity team-mates Jessie Davis and Naoto Matsukura were in the mix for a Top 3 run until they both ran out of fuel. Having TQ’d the second round yesterday, Capricorn’s Toni Gruber would make a driver error and end his run early. All this meant that running in the 3rd fastest heat Takaaki Shimo would complete the Top 3 for the round ahead of Dominic Greiner, Shoki Takahata and Dario Balestri. Having TQ’d the final qualifier yesterday but having had poor results in the previous two, reigning World Champion Takahata described Q4 as a ‘safe run’ adding he would ‘push more’ in the next one.
‘A better day today, now we show what we wanted to show yesterday’, was Kurzbuch reaction to becoming the fourth different driver to TQ a round here at the Infinity International RC Speedway. He continued, ‘It was a clean run, we were good with the fuel, it was a perfect run’. With a best of a P4 from yesterday, he added, ‘there is a long way to go, this is one the first one of three we need’. Asked about his Ielasi Tuned powered MRX6X he said, ‘everything feels really good with the car and engine so there is no point to change anything.’
The older of the Sahashi brothers, Yuya was very happy with the balance of his IF18 III but said his engine lost power towards the end of the 4-minutes and this cost his a couple of tenths. Asked the reason for the power loss he said the engine was set to lean. Planning to use the same engine again in Q5, the 2015 Worlds Podium finisher said he will just change the plug and in terms of his car he is happy with this so he will leave it unchanged.
Finding himself in Group 10 of 12, Shimo admits this is adding to the challenge of getting a quick time. The veteran Japanese driver had a bad start to qualifying yesterday when he broke an engine in Q1. Finding a better set-up for Q2 despite drivers errors he would get a P8 and P10 in the following two rounds. With his P3 this morning a confidence boost, he plans to push harder in the next one.
‘Not so bad, I’m safe in the Semi now with my points’, was Greiner’s reaction after Q4. The former 1:10 World Champion said, ‘It is super close. We are not the fastest, the others are faster but first you must finish and we have been doing that’. Having started with a P2 in Q1, he explained, ‘We had a problem with the engine in the 2nd one but after checking it we decided to run it in Q3 but it was done’. Today he tried a different body switching from the Xtreme Hyper Diablo to Super Diablo, but not sure it was any improvement he will switch back to the Hyper. He concluded, ‘for a long run the car is OK so overall things are not too bad’.
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