Davis tops Q3 as Balestri hits problems in the pits

Jesse Davis topped the penultimate round of qualifying at the Singapore International Nitro Grand Prix, the Infinity driver becoming only the second driver to top the times today at the RCMC Marine Parade track as Dario Balestri’s reign on proceeding ending with a freak incident during his fuel stop.  Having topped seeding, Balestri backed up his opening TQ run with another in Q2 and was looking on target to wrap up an early overall TQ in the third & final of Saturday’s qualifiers.  Making his stop half way through the 7-minute run, as his car was released from refuelling his mechanic’s glove would get snagged by the head of the engine, the resulting chaos causing his retirement.  Having opened with a P2 and followed that up with P3 in the second qualifier, it was Teemu Leino who then took over at the top of the timing screens but with Davis chasing him down.  Setting his fastest lap of the qualifier on lap 22, that was when the Australian took over the TQ pace but worse was to come for the Leino.  Pushing to retake the lead, the Finnish driver would come upon Mugen Seiki’s Shoki Takahata, who had spun his car out of the corner and was facing the wrong way making for a perfect launch pad that would send Leino flying into retirement.  Finishing 1.526 seconds behind Davis a much improved Takakki Shimo took second for the round with Carmine Riola completing the Top 3 with half a second advantage over Jilles Groskamp.  With Takahata surviving the impact from Leino, he would get a 5 for the round having retired with engine issues in Q2 while a struggling for power Naoto Matsukura completing the Top 6.  With the Top 4 going directly into Sunday afternoon’s 45-main final, drivers have one final attempt at qualifying in the morning.

Surpried by his TQ run considering out Q1 & 2 went, Davis said, ‘I didn’t expect to get a TQ so know I have to get another one tomorrow morning and then I can make the Top 4.’  He explained, ‘The first two, I ran out of fuel in both of them.  Ran out of fuel bad in the first one, then we worked a little bit with the tune but still ran out of fuel in the second one and this one we found a little bit more with the tune and crossed the line out of fuel.’  He continued, ‘The car feels good, it’s nice, it’s easy, it’s stable and consistent to drive.  It is just lacking power to the faster guys but if I can drive around consistent you never know what happens with those guys.  At the moment it is a really good finals car, not super fast but if I am there I am there.’  The only one who can now deny Balestri from defending his Grand Prix from the pole, but needing to better the Italian’s Q2 time, the 36 year-old said, ‘I will change my engine for tomorrow because we just found a crack in the block on that one so that’s maybe why we are losing run time and the tune is changing, so we try a new in the morning run and see how we go.’

‘That one was good’, was Shimo’s reaction after Q3.  The veteran Japanese racer explained, ‘the first one I had too much steering and the rear was very loose.  It was very difficult to drive and not fast.’  Describing Q2 as ‘almost the same’, he said his engine also had no power.  Checking that there was nothing broken on the car given how it was handling, he said there was nothing broken and adjusting only the rear toe in slightly made the car very easy to drive in the third round.  Describing his car as ‘now good’ and holding P4 in the qualification ranking just ahead of Davis, asked he could hold on to his position he replied ‘maybe’.

Giving his reaction to his P3, Riola said, ‘I flipped in the pit and I get P3.  I don’t know how much we lost but I think we could have won’.  Giving a summary of his day, the Italian said, ‘Q1 I broke the engine, Q2 was not bad, and Q3 was also not that bad but we lost a couple of seconds in the pit lane.’  Joking that ‘It is really good when you are P1’, when asked if the speed was there for that he replied, ‘Yeah I think so, we will try to push the last one.’  On changes to his Infinity he said, ‘It depends, if the track gets cooler I don’t touch but if it is still hot like today I need to go up with shock oil or something.’