Balestri just edges out Leino to take Q2 in Bangkok
Dario Balestri has taken the second round of qualifying at the 1:10 Nitro World Championship after just edging out Infinity team-mate Teemu Leino in the closing laps of the 7-minute encounter. After both himself and Leino DNF’d the opening qualifier, both drivers needed to get their first points on the board. With Toni Gruber, who took everyone by surprise with his TQ in Round 1, having a slower Q2, and second fastest man Jilles Groskamp unable to start after suffering an engine failure in the warm-up for his second quali run, it was Leino who lead out the top heat. However, hitting traffic at the end of the run as Balestri set his fastest lap on his penultimate lap it was the Italian who took it by 13/100ths of a second from the Finn. Behind the Europeans Australia’s Jessie Davis bettered his Q1 P6 with the third fastest time with Francesco Tironi again in the mix at the front after his opening P3 effort. While Gruber would set the 6th fastest time for Q2 the Capricorn driver would have his time deleted as his rear wing was deemed to be too high in post tech inspection.
‘It was a clean a run, I am not sure the fastest run but we got good points’, was how Balestri described his TQ run. The 2018 World Championship Top Qualifier in Miami added, ‘I was driving safe I would say because everyone is on the limit with the flip and even in the second part of the qualification the clutch was on the limit’. Removing he worked on removing his car’s engine to check the clutch he said, You need to not only focus on your driving style but also focus on the complete package, the engine, clutch, everything. It is a real challenge.’
‘I had traffic the last three laps that’s why I lost it’ was Leino reaction after Q2. He continued, ‘I also had traffic after my refueling but at he end with the white car I lost the most time. I also had one mistake when I was on two wheels for a long time.’ On his car he said, ‘It is good but really hard, you turn and get on two wheels. But if you take off the steering it is slower, so it’s really hard.’ After his Q1 DNF he concluded, ‘I need two more finish runs and then it’s OK.’
Asked about his Top 3 run, Davis replied, ‘Yeah it was alright. The first one was a good one too but I had one flip and without this I was TQ pace so I didn’t change the car, kept going and just tried to get one in the bag. I didn’t drive particularly good that one but got the points. The car is feeling pretty good and pretty stable so we’ll just leave it as it is for now and try & get some more points in this evening, we need one more to be safe. Tomorrow then maybe we will try some set-up changes.’ In these conditions it is really difficult, you will see every round I reckon someone else TQ so there will be 6 different round TQs. Just who can keep it on the track longest with the fastest pace.’
Reacting to his Q2 performance before finding out about his disqualification, Gruber said, ‘with the temperatures coming up we feel more grip and it was more difficult to drive, it was nearly critical to flip so that’s why I had to drive more easier and you see that in the laps times’. Running in the second fastest heat after his struggles in seeding he added, ‘I also had problems in traffic so in the end I am still happy with 6th place.’
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