Takahata takes Q3 as Balestri holds overnight TQ
In a thrilling first day of qualifying at the 1:8 Onroad World Championship, Mugen Seiki’s Shoki Takahata has TQ’d the third round of qualifying becoming the third different driver/manufacturer combo to top the times in Japan. The reigning World Champion capitalised on the cooling evening conditions to set the fastest time of the day ahead of Infinity’s Dario Balestri with Capricorn’s Toni Gruber completing the Top 3. Opening qualifying with a TQ run, it is Balestri who holds the overnight TQ at Infinity International RC Speedway ahead of Gruber who topped the second round of qualifying. With Takahata holding P7 in the ranking, his day not starting out well with a crash in Q1 and DNF in Q2, it is 17-year-old Kouki Kato who is the top Japanese driver sitting in third following an impressive second fastest time run in Q2.
After his issues in the first two qualifiers, him unable to finish both, Takahata summed his his Q3 performance as ‘perfect’. The 29-year-old said driver errors caused his car to flip in Q1 and ‘fly’ in Q2 and so he was happy to finally deliver a strong final run of the day. Changing manifold for the opening and again for Q2, the O.S Engines team driver switched from the MR03 to the MR02 for Q3 saying while he preferred the feeling of the MR03 he needed the better run time he got from the MR02. Highlighting his improved fuel mileage, an issue that has plagued many drivers today, on completing his TQ run he was able to run almost a complete extra lap. With his TQ run a confidence boost going into Day 2 of qualifying tomorrow, Takahata said he hopes for more of the same tomorrow.
‘Congrats to Shoki to be so fast. He came from nowhere. I know he is super fast and that he has been super quick here so welcome back’, was Balestri’s reaction after the day’s concluding qualifier. The Italian who lost his title to Takahata in the US in 2019, continued, ‘If there is one thing I can say about the race here is that all the cars start too close together. It is very hard to follow so close to another car, it effects the aerodynamics. Still I don’t know if I would still be as fast as Shoki. We have to work on that for tomorrow’.
‘Overall it was a fast run but it was also faster for the other, I was a little too slow, I was not on point for the first minute’, that was Gruber’s thoughts on his third qualifying attempt. He continued, ‘then I found my rhythm but I wasn’t carrying the same top speed as Dario and Shoki. I think they were on new tyres, Dario for sure, so they could build more speed down the straight. My car was reaching top speed early and going no more. Still a 3rd at World Championship is OK but I want to be faster so lets see tomorrow what we can do.’
Running out of fuel while on a TQ run in the first one and suffering a number of flame outs in Q2 due to too low an idle setting, Kurzbuch said Q3 was ‘a safe run, we needed it’ adding, ‘It was a day to forget’. Drafting his former Shepherd mechanic Alex Kempe in for this event to work alongside his father in the pits, the Swiss driver said, ‘We will finish up early today, recharge and get ready to go for tomorrow. This was really not a good day for use with all our different issues’.
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