Kaerup tops 2WD seeding at World Champs
Marcus Kaerup has topped seeding at the IFMAR 1:10 2WD Offroad World Championships, the Team Associated ace delivering the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the Hills RC Off Road track as Day 1 of the action in Sydney concluded under the lights. The 40th anniversary of the championships, a very tight timetable consisting of 15-groups per round would see the schedule fall behind resulting in the two seeding rounds being reduced to 4-minute runs. Fastest at the conclusion of the four 5-minute free practice rounds, Kaerup couldn’t carry that form into the opening seeding round managing only the fourth fastest time as Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski found his form again to go fastest ahead of Team Associated’s Davey Batta and Xray’s Bartek Zalewski. With it now dark at the track, the very vocal cockatoos finally quietening down and roosted in the surrounding trees for the night, Kaerup would shine under the lights on a much faster track with the newly crowned eBuggy World Champion topping the times by a tenth of a second over Orlowski. A further 2/10ths of a second back, an impressive Kouki Kato completed the Top 3 ahead of the similar cars of Aydin Horne, Lachlan Donnelly, Davide Ongaro and Batta. The only driver making the top heat of qualifying with their CP1 time being Zalewski who was best of the Xray drivers on what was a challenging day for the Slovakian manufacturer with their star drivers David Ronnefalk and Dakotah Phend seeding 15th and 49th respectively.
Summing up his pace topping run, Kaerup said, ‘It was really consistent, I found rhythm early on clocking in some fast laps, then I got kind of too excited and I wanted to push even more so I lost my rhythm in the middle of the heat. I got my head down again and kept it calm for the last minute or so.’ With the attention now turning to 5-minute runs for qualifying, asked about his consistency over a full run the 17-yer-old replied, ‘throughout all the practices I haven’t done a roll yet and didn’t need a marshal so I am feeling pretty good, I can drive this car 5-minutes so I am super excited for tomorrow.’ On driving the last round under lights he said, ‘when I got on the rostrum I was like what the hell because I couldn’t really see what was going on but I focused and my eyes adjusted so it was alright.’
‘It was good to come back to good speed and nice not to top seed the practice’, that was Orlowski’s thoughts on seeding. The reigning 1:12 Onroad World Champion continued, ‘To be competitive we were trying small things every run and trying to get the car nice & safe, consistent, and fast on the 5-minute pace.’ Asked if they improved the car after the fall off in performance for Round 3 & 4 of free practice or if the track conditions had just come back to them for seeding, the Polish driver replied, ‘I think we found stuff in the set-up compared to what we had in the middle of the day so tomorrow we will see what happens in the morning and early qualifying but we have a good base.’ Asked about driving the final seeding round under the spot lights he said, ‘It’s more difficult than when the sun is out but its definitely better than without them!’
Having ended free practice as the closest challenger to Kaerup over 3-laps, Kato said he left his car set-up unchanged instead focusing on pushing his driving for a strong seeding result. Adjusting his steering servo settings for the last run of the day, the 19-year-old said this made it ‘more easy to drive’. On qualifying, the Japanese National Champion said, ‘I’m excited and confident for tomorrow.’
Horne was happy to end his day strong saying it was ‘A pretty good day’ and adding ‘we had our ups & downs and I had a fair share of blow outs as well but we were able to kind of clean it back up at the end working with the team guys and talking to my good friend & team-mate Davey Batta cause he was super fast all day. We were able to get on the same page there and it showed up in the end so I am pretty pumped.’ Asked what he had been struggling with initially, the 23-year-old explained, ‘the track is a pretty loose surface compared to what we’re more accustomed to and there are definitely some bumps and holes developing along the way so just the stability and overall traction is pretty tough to navigate. So the more of those two features you can get the easier life is for sure.’ Looking to tomorrow’s qualifying, he said, ‘I think the program is in a good spot so we’ll have to see what the new day brings but I am looking forward to it.’ Asked about his 5-minute form, he replied, ‘I felt good with my consistency, I didn’t really feel like I was too on the edge but you never really know what the race is going to bring. I’m sure the intensity is going to be high and nerves are going to be up so we are going to try to lock it in for sure.’
A very pleased & relived looking Donnelly after CP2, the Australian said, ‘That was a pretty good end to my day, that was the best position of my whole day. I started with two sixs and then we kind of got a bit lost in the middle of the day. We have never kind of seen the track this grippy before, at the warm-up it was a lot slippier and we tried a few things today that didn’t work so we got together with the team and seen what was working for them and we put that on for the last three runs and it was miles better.’ He continued, ‘Front tyre choice is pretty important and I am using a JC tyre, some people are using the Dirt Web and and some people are using the Rips, for me with the Rips it definitely gives smoother steering. The 21-year-old concluded, ‘It’s good for the confidence going into tomorrow, it was a bit shaky in the middle of the day but now I am pretty happy how the day has ended.’
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