Orlowski takes opening 1:12 Worlds qualifier

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has taken the opening round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championships in Florida.  Top Qualifier at the last running of the Worlds in 2020, he would TQ the first of the 6 rounds at Beachline Raceway by 0.25 of a second from Top Seed & defending Champion Marc Rheinard.  A very closely contested 8-minute qualifier, Rheinard’s Awesomatix team-mate Kemp Anderson was right in the mix.  Posting the fastest lap of the round, the American was laying down the TQ pace before dropping off the top spot with a bad lap and eventually completing the Top 3.  Running in the second fastest heat having nor featured in seeding yesterday, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg took a confidence boosting P4 for the round ahead of the Awesomatix of Sam Isaacs and Snowbirds podium finisher Donny Lia.

Asked about his opening effort Orlowski replied, ‘I had a terrible start’.  The Polish racer explained, ‘we tried something in the car after practice because we had understeer at the end of the run.  The change made the car more aggressive so it was sketchy at the beginning.  I could live with it but just needed time to get used to it’.  He continued, ‘mid race I started to go very good and caught Marc.  We were both pushing a lot and we both had bobbles.  There is room for improvement in the car but it’s good to get a TQ from Q1’.

‘A solid start’ was how Rheinard summed the first qualifier.  Switching back from his trademark colour scheme painted bodyshell he ran in final controlled practice yesterday, to a pink one-colour body, he said that was down to his discovering a 6.5gram weight difference between the two.  While the same model of body, he said different batches seem to have different weights, adding ‘6.5grams on a body that weighs just 22 grams is a lot’.  Suffering a ‘shitty jump at the chicane’ that cost him a few tenths,  he said his car ‘missed a bot of steering’ something he put down to the gluing of his front tyres explaining, ‘I used more glue so I will try using a little less the next one’.

With Kemp’s sheer pace impressing many onlookers, the American summed up the qualifier as ‘pretty good’.  He said, ‘the car was hard to drive in practice this morning so we had to calm down the front end for Q1 but it was a little too much’.  The 21-year-old continued, ‘It started to push at the end so we need to find the good medium for the next one’.

‘Not bad.  It was another run I was more comfortable with the car’, was the response of a more upbeat Hagberg when asked about Q1.  The 2018 World Champion continued, ‘every run I am getting more comfortable and changes we made after yesterday have helped to close the gap.  It is still not enough for Top 3 but the car is getting there and is feeling a lot better today.  It’s a very positive start and now we will try to do more changes in the same direction.’

Isaacs was pleased with his opening P5 effort saying, ‘the car was a lot more drivable that one so I could run a clean 8-minutes but once you get out of your rhythm it’s hard to get back into it.  It was a decent run but I need a little more speed’.  Asked what he planned to change for this, he replied , ‘I will try heavier dampening and take out camber.  I just needs a few small changes’.

In the opening Spec Class qualifier, it was Awesomatix’s Max Machler who took the TQ for the round.  Despite a crash during the heat, the Awesomatix driver had an 8/10ths advantage over Joe Trandell with Dave Vera third, both drivers running in the second fastest of the 6 heat groups.

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