Kato takes Q1 in Brisbane
The first round of qualifying is in the books at the third round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships and it was Infinity’s Kouki Kato who came out on top in Brisbane. The Japanese driver claimed the first TQ run of the weekend ahead of last year’s Australian round winner Caleb Noble, the Tekno driver benefitting from mistakes by a number of key contenders. Winner of the opening round of the championship in New Zealand back in March, Jayden Edmunds completed the Top 3 as the top Mayako, his team-mate Pekko Iivonen, having topped seeding, having a run he summed as ‘bad’. The Finnish driver said his tyres just didn’t feel right and he struggled ending up with a P12. Suffering a number of mistakes, Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik had good speed but ended up P4 while having TQ’d the first round of eBuggy, Sparko’s Tyler Jones opened with a P5, the American another with a costly mistake in the run.
‘Lucky’ was how Kouki summed up Q1, as he benefited from a last lap mistake by Bernadzik but then had a mistake of his own on his last lap. Holding on for the TQ by 1.864 from Noble, he explained, ‘I had a mistake maybe 4-seconds but Alex’s mistake was bigger he lost about 8-seconds.’ Feeling Bernadzik is slightly faster in terms of overall pace, asked what was the reason for the mistakes, the Japanese driver laughed and replied, ‘I relaxed too much on the last lap trying to keep it safe.’ For Q2, the ABC Indonesia and Philippines race winner plans to test a set-up change on his eBuggy and if that works will copy it on his nitro buggy for the final run of the day.
Producing a clean sweep of wins here 12-months ago, Noble, who lives a 15-hour drive away, described his car as ‘not too bad’ adding ‘we are getting closer.’ Trying a different compound for Q1, he said, ‘we were running 5th, jump up to 4th, and then I was lucky that Alex and Tyler made mistakes on their last laps which bumped me to second. It was pretty solid. I drove really clean and just tried to drive consistent with what I had.’ Asked what he is still searching for in the car, the 18-year-old said, ‘we’re trying to find a bit more stability in the cornering. I was picking up the inside really bad, not allowing me to push as hard as I wanted to, we fixed that for Q1 but came across a bit of understeer now so we are trying to chase that a little bit but the car is much easier to drive, not quite fast enough but easy to drive so we’ve got that in our pocket.’ Running the TZO 500 tyre, he will try their 202 for the cooler Q2 conditions and expected lower grip.
‘Not the cleanest run but it was pretty good’ was how Edmunds described his P3 performance. The 19-year-old Australian, for whom the Pine Hills track is a fly away race, continued, ‘I made one mistake on the second to last lap but the whole run I was in traffic with 2 cars around me the whole time. They were a bit quicker so I was letting them go but then they’d have a mistake I then I had to let them go again so I lost a little bit of time and rhythm. The car felt good, no major problems there.’ For Q2, a threat of rain tomorrow meaning an earlier start to quali than scherduled, he said, ‘I think I am going to make a tyre change for the next one. I am just going to go to a different thread pattern cause the temperature is going to drop and the track will get a little bit slick so going from the new Napoli to the Sahara which we found generates a little more grip here this weekend.’
A little frustrated with his driving in the opening qualifier Bernadzik said, ‘It was OK, I think my motor was a bit too lean and it was a bit hard to hang on to but the car speed was right there. I just need to clean it up the next one’. Suffering ‘three or four bad ones’ (crashes) over the 5-minutes he said one ‘was upside down’ and another ‘I had to fully readjust the car’. Looking to Q2, the 2023 winner of the event said they plan to change the tune on the engine and then its up to him to drive it and ‘keep it on all four wheels.’
Opening qualifying with the TQ in Electric Buggy, in nitro the first lap put Jones on the back foot. He explained, ‘I started out with a wreck on my first lap and then I was trying to play catch up and then caught up to Alex (Bernadzik). It was just a racing deal, we are both fast and you can’t really pass so I tried to kind of make a move and then he was faster so I kind of let him back, we were just racing.’ On his car, the American said, ‘It was good, I just made too many mistakes. The speed is there and I just need to drive better. I need to calm down and drive’. Asked if he planned any changes for Q2, he replied, ‘I am going to stick to the same, I have wrenched a lot today so I am kind of taking a mental break. I think I will be alright.’