Title No.7 as Matsukura reclaims Nitro Touring Worlds in Italy
18-years after he took his first IFMAR World title as a 15-year-old in 1:12, Naoto Matsukura has added a 7th World Championship victory by reclaiming the 1:10 Nitro Touring Car crown in Italy. The 11th running of the championships, the Infinity driver, who turns 33 on Monday, would take a convincing win in Gubbio, 8-years on from winning the same title in the United Stated. Starting from 3rd on the grid, Matsukura would go to P2 on the opening lap and closely pursue team-mate & Top Qualifier Dario Balestri as they pulled clear of the field. Unfortunately for Balestri, just like in 2016 when he TQ’d the same championships at the same track, the final wasn’t to go his way. While finishing on this occasion, albeit in P6, the Italian would hit an issue during his tyre stop with the rear right wheel change delaying him by a lap & a half, effectively ending his quest to finally add a 1:10 title to the two he has achieved in 1:8. The only driver to manage a 15-second lap of the Miniautodromo Internazionale Mario Rosati track in the Main, later in the race he would also run out of fuel. With his main rival out of contention, Matsukura could manage the race even adjusting his tyre stop strategy to just a single stop having started out planning two stops. While he was on cruise control, with a 2-lap buffer, to becoming the first driver to win the categories biggest prize twice, the battle for second brought life to the final minutes of the 1-hour encounter as Capricorn’s Toni Gruber, having turned around a disappointing start to the week, tried to hunt down a very impressive Filippo Domanin. This race marking his World Championship debut, the talented Italian teenager kept the highly experienced German at bay taking a crowd pleasing 2nd by one tenth of second. Just off the podium, Kyle Branson claimed P4 on his World Championship return ahead Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani.
‘An amazing feeling to be a World Champion again’, was Matsukura’s reaction to title number 7. On the race that brought him that title, he said, ‘In the beginning my car was good but after 10-minutes it became a little bit loose so I cannot push a lot so I then also had some small mistakes. Then the gap was 4-seconds or something but my mechanics tyre change was very fast so I can get the lead.’ He continued, ‘After the tyre change my was car was much better and even on small tyres it was not loose. I think the track was different in the second half of the race because of more & more running on it.’ Asked at what stage he felt he had control of the race, he said, ‘I didn’t push in the race because I was trying to drive controlled. My mechanic told me every lap my times compared to Dario. If he said Dario is .3 then I made .2.’ On his tyre strategy he explained, ‘At the start we were thinking 1.5 or maybe two stops but we watched Dario and he didn’t change so I also then went with just one stop. We planned before to change one side and then all four, but when he had 4-seconds on me if we did this he would have got too big a gap and could then have manage so I waited to see if he changed.’ On the tyre wear, he said, ‘After 25-minute you do feel like you are running out of tyres. You have less steering and I even asked Muira to check my tyre on my last fuel stop to see if I have tyre or not because of the understeer but he said I have so I can continue no problem.’ Asked if winning today still felt as good as his first Worlds win in 2008 he said, ‘It’s the same. Once you taste Worlds victory you need more and to get this 7th one is amazing. Everything was really good, apart from the car being a little loose in the beginning but still easy to drive, the car, the engine, and my pitmen were all good. Muira is special and also this time my mechanic Kitagawa, who built my car and made everything on the set-up. In 2008 he was my mechanic with Yokomo so I got the 1:12 title many times because of him.’ Asked his thoughts now on adding the 1:8 title to his tally next year, having lapped the entire field by the mid point of the 2017 final on his 1:8 Worlds debut in France, before a dead battery ended his race, he replied, ‘1:8 I think is more high level. For me it is the highest level, it’s the F1 of racing so I want to win it and I will be my best but in Italy it will not be easy.’ – the 2027 1:8 Worlds set to be staged at the famous Fiorano track.
A week that will be remembered as the one he firmly him put his name on the map as rising star of the sport, on his first World Championship final, Domanin said, ‘My race was very clean, I make only one mistake, and it was a very good fight with Toni in the last minutes.’ Impressing everyone with his racecraft and how he dealt with the pressure in the closing laps, clearly pleased with his result, he added, ‘I am excited by the race result because two months ago I made 3rd in European Championship in 1:8 and now second in the Worlds. I am super happy.’ On his strategy, the 18-year-old Xray driver said, ‘We changed tyres at the half way of the race and the change was a clean change. Fuel we stopped at 4 & half minutes, which saved one stop.’ Asked about his tyre management, he said, ‘in the last 5-minutes with Toni it was super super tight because I had zero tyre left and Toni I think had a bit more than me. It was a good fight and I am happy I stayed second.’
Gruber seem to suprise even himself with his podium finish saying, ‘I was never thinking about a podium this week, because I think if people saw how we struggled in the practice days we were never even thinking about the final, the Semi final yes but not final.’ The 2017 and 2023 European Champion added, ‘In the qualification we made some good changes after Patrizio (Rossi) arrived. He had some good ideas on what we had to change and it paid off as we closed the gap to the front. Also the 7-minutes instead of the 3-laps was better for me and we managed P10.’ With the rain that cancelled Day 2 of qualifying on Thursday, washing the track clean and causing drivers like the defending champion Jilles Grokamp to struggle for a set-up, Gruber explained, ‘After the rain the track changed and I think that was good for us. In the Semi Final we managed the tyres good and we didn’t change and we had good laps times compared to the other Semi final. We survived the half hour but I am alway pushing so tyres for us is always critical but I tried to manage a little bit different this time and it paid off. So then the thinking was we make the same in the final also, change one time in the middle, but in the end we decided that because in the Semi final I couldn’t push (to save tyres) we decided in the final I needed to push more and with that I can’t survive half an hour. So then we decide to make one right side and then one time full (tyre change) which was in my opinion the best decision.’ On late his battle with Dominan, the 2023 World GT Champion said, ‘I played in my head with getting a P5 or P6, never the podium, but when I saw after the tyre change I was P5, then P4, and then Dario’s flame moved me to P3 we worked on closing the gap to P2. I knew I had a little fresher tyres than him, in the end he managed the pressure.’ He added, ‘I thought maybe he makes a mistake because of too much pressure but he was calm in this way. We had a good fight til the end.’ He concluded, ‘In the end P3 was too good for us if you think were we where in practice but everything was then on point in the final but for sure more was not possible.’
Lining up P4 on the grid as one of the four direct qualifier, finishing fourth Capricorn’s Branson said, ‘We kept our position so not bad but obviously you always want more.’ The British driver, who finished runner-up to Matsukura in 2018 in Miami, continued, ‘We kept with Filippo for the first 12-minutes and then the car became tricky to drive, loose on power, and pushing a little bit. It felt like a front sway bar came of the car potentially, I just need to check after we get it back after tech. It was a little bit disappointing cause I knew the pace was there right with Filippo at the start but that’s how the race goes sometimes.’ Running 3:50 fuel stops and one complete tyre stop, he felt that was the right strategy. Starting with a brand new set of the championship’s handout Hotrace tyres and running them for 32-minutes, he then change to a new set that had been scrubbed in for 2-laps. On the second set, he said the feeling of something being wrong with the car was amplified by the change to the new set. ‘It felt like I had drag brake and the front sway bar was off.’ On checking the car after it was released from tech, it was discovered that a stone was stuck in the rear wheel. On his impressive return to nitro racing, having switched to electric racing after his 2018 podium, asked if this week has lit the fire to come back and do more nitro racing, he said, ‘Absolutely. I am happy with the result considering the time we put in, which was just one ENS and a couple of days at home. The guys ahead do it all the time so hopefully if we can put more time in now and potentially have a better result next time.’
Asked for a run down on his disappointing race, Balestri replied, ‘I would say all was under control and I was managing the tyres til the tyre change when lost one & half laps because they cannot fit the rear (tyre). We lost the race there!’ The reigning back to back European Champion continued, ‘later we also ran out of fuel because we didn’t get it full the previous stop so it seems like it was just not my day.’ He added, ‘The important thing is to just say it was a mistake and I am sorry for this mistake.’ With Italy, the World capital of nitro onroad racing, set to stage next year’s 1:8 Onroad World Championship, a class Balestri is most revered in, asked if that could be the race he gets to finally take a World title on home soil, Balestri replied, ‘1:10 is the one I am missing so I would really like to take one but for sure we will keeping pushing and do our best.’ With the next 1:10 Worlds potentially set to be staged in the US, the most winning European Champion must wait the 2-years for the title that eludes him despite numerous TQ honours.