Kaerup takes opening 4WD qualifier ahead of Kilic
Team Associated’s Marcus Kaerup has TQ’d the opening round of 4WD qualifying at the IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championships, the 2WD Top Qualifier fastest from the Mugen Seiki prototype of a very focused Burak Kilic. As things hot up both on and off the track in Australia, running in the second fastest heat group it was Kilic who laid down the benchmark for the top seeded heat as they took to the track in the hot midday conditions. With reigning World Champion Davide Ongaro leading them out, initially it was Xray’s Dakotah Phend who set the pace before Kaerup went to the top with his team-mate Ongaro holding P2. While Kaerup set the fastest lap while in the process of executing a clean run, we would see mistakes from both Phend and Ongaro. With a roll over, Phend eventually got P3 2/10ths of a second off Kilic. Also with a roll over, Ongaro would finish P5 just 0.002 off the Xray of David Ronnefalk. The round would finish with 3 Xray drivers in the Top 6 however young Polish talent Bartek Zalewski would be DQ’d in post race tech for an unmarked battery promoting Schumacher’s Daniele Kobbevik to 6th.
‘The car was pretty good, the conditions out there are pretty intense’, that was how Kaerup summed up Q1. The 17-year-old continued, ‘I caught Davide and kind of followed him and then when he crashed I was able to go on.’ He continued, ‘the track is pretty slick now, it’s getting more and more dry. I don’t know if I am going to change (set-up) for the track conditions but the temperature is quite high today compared to all the other days so maybe we will chase that a bit but I am looking forward to the next run.’
Very much in game face mode today, Kilic wasn’t saying a whole lot after his run. The Turkish racer said, ‘It was really good my car and my electronic worked great. I was maybe not fastest but I was just trying not to make mistakes and that was the goal.’ The 21-year-old continued, ‘for sure Q2 we try to go faster and for sure try without mistakes but it’s really difficult to go without (mistakes).’ In terms of car set-up on his new Mugen he said, ‘we will stay with everything like yesterday, after the last practice it was really decent, so I will just focus on my driving and clean runs.’
Phend described his opening qualifier as ‘A solid run’, adding, ‘I feel like my race pace is really good, I just had a bobble there. I got on the gas a little too hard and washed out. I’m happy with a Top 3 for the first one especially with the mistake so we’ll clean it up and try get a solid point for Q2.’ Regarding car changes for the second round, the reigning multiple ROAR National Champion said, ‘we’ll maybe make a small change to the rear end but we’ll talk with the team and figure out if we can get a little more stability out of it but I think we are pretty close.’
Reacting to his first qualifying effort, Ronnefalk said, ‘I’m pleased with that cause I was struggling a little bit with the rear end being loose on power a lot more that run than the run before. I really had to be super careful on the exits and that required full focus for the 5-minutes.’ The European Champion added, ‘I wasn’t really going fast lap time wise but I kept it on the four wheels and in the end that made fourth. I made a small change for that one but I also think the track is different now, drying out all the time throughout the day. I will probably go back to what I had yesterday and go again in Q2.’
Ongaro was content with his car in Q1 saying, ‘It was good but maybe the car was too soft on the rear.’ The Italian continued, ‘I was a bit nervous on the first laps so I slowed down a bit but actually it was good.’ Asked about his roll over during the run, he said, ‘yeah a 28.9 lap so I lost almost 3-seconds. I just landed short on the left side double.’