Sahashi opens WC title defence as Top Seed in Thailand
Infinity’s Tadahiko Sahashi is the Top Seed at the IFMAR 1:10 Nitro World Championship in Thailand, the reigning World Champion topping the ranking after today’s four rounds of seeding practice at the Huge RC Circuit in Bangkok. With drivers counting the best two points from the four rounds, having posted the fastest time in SP1 Sahashi would top seeding from team-mate Teemu Leino, the Finn setting the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the fourth & final practice. While not topping a round and crashing out of SP4, it is reigning European Champion Dario Balestri who will carry the No.3 on his Infinity in the top qualifying heat tomorrow having posted the second fastest times in SP1 & 3. With a different driver topping each of the seeding rounds, the fastest time in the penultimate round would see Takaaki Shimo fourth ahead of Australian Jesse Davies with Jilles Groskamp completing the Top 6. The other driver to top the time sheets today when he went fastest in SP2, local Gamee Mongkolpan concluded seeding in 7th ahead of Swede Viktor Wilck.
While happy to open his title defence as the Top Seed describing the seeding outcome as ‘good’, Sahashi had a troubled second half to the day. In the third seeding run the 2013 1:8 Onroad World Champion crashed heavily resulting in a broken chassis which had to change for the day’s final run. After running with the new chassis he afterwards described the car ‘was not so good’ adding his night is going to be spent looking over the car to check if there is other damage he didn’t notice from his SP3 off.
Checking over his times for SP4 after setting the fastest time, asked if the improvement came from changes to his car or just managing to put together a good three laps, Leino replied, ‘It was a bit of both, I got the three laps and the car was a little better.’ He explained, ‘I changed back to my orange body and it was a little bit better. It was just different but I always like orange better’. The same body as his colour scheme painted body he ran earlier, asked how he feels he is prepared for qualifying when the emphasis moves away from outright fastest three laps and more to consistency he said, ‘I miss a little bit of steering so it sounds funny but I need to add a little bit more without flipping. It is tricky to find the balance like I said before, it is a little bit too pushy now.’
Another driver to have an off, Balestri said, ‘Everything should be OK. When you change something and you make a mistake in what you are changing you flip, like I did because I tried a more forward body and it flipped easy. I broke not so much but I check now that everything is ok for tomorrow.’ Asked about the 7-minute qualifiers, the 1:8 World Champion said, ‘It will be interesting to see how it is going with the tyres, I know the more you run the more you get grip so it will be important to check the balance of the car, we will see’. He concluded, ‘three laps is a another thing because on 7-minutes you need the pace where on three laps you can maybe cut the last one, so tomorrow is another day.’
Asked to sum up his overall performance today in seeding, Shimo said, ‘today was OK, my car was easy to drive in the first three rounds but in the last one I didn’t like how it felt, it felt too heavy’. Putting the change of car down to the conditions of the evening run, stating he hadn’t change his car set-up for the run, the Japanese stalwart of nitro onroad racing performance said going into tomorrow 7-minute qualifiers, 3 of the 6 on the schedule, he is confident that he has an easy to drive, consistent car joking his only concern might be the driver!
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