Deja vu as Kaerup tops 4WD Seeding in Sydney

The opening day of 4WD action has ended at the 1:10 Offroad World Championships and in a somewhat deja vu outcome of what we witness in 2WD in Australia on Monday, it was Team Associated’s Marcus Kaerup who concluded proceedings by topping seeding.  While the Dane ended the day fastest, unlike 2WD he didn’t have it completely to himself in practice.  After the opening two free practice rounds it was the defending World Champion Davide Ongaro who sat at the top of the times before two more rounds promoted Schumacher’s Daniel Kobbevik to pace setter on the reversed Hills RC Off Road track layout.  Seeding would open with Kobbevik carrying his form as he went fastest in CP1 ahead of the Xray of American Brennan Schimmel, the Slovakian manufacturer very much in the hunt after their 2WD woes.  With Kobbevik unable to improve on his best 3-laps in the second seeding round, Kaerup, who was only 6th after the first one, would go a tenth quicker than Kobbevik to goe into qualifying tomorrow as the Top Seed.  With Kobbevik carrying the number no.2 for qualifying, it would be Dakotah Phend who ended up being closest to the Scandinavian duo, the American 3/10ths of a second off the pace.  Also bettering his time in CP2, David Ronnefalk set the fourth fastest time with Schimmel’s CP1 time giving him P5, Xray looking strong with 3 cars in the Top 5.  Failing to make the Top 10 in any of the four free practice rounds, Michal Orlowski ended the day with a run that sees the Schumacher driver complete the Top 6 ahead of Ongaro while his team-mate & newly crowned 2WD World Champion Broc Champlin finds himself in the second fastest heat.  As history shows however this isn’t such a bad thing, the American having also started out in the second fastest qualifying group in 2WD.

Reacting after the run that gave the 17-year-old the Top Seed status, Kaerup said, ‘the car is pretty fast and way more comfortable this time.  I got some good laps under my belt and a good 5-minute run but we are still looking to find more comfortability in the car and speed.  We are going to try some stuff for tomorrow and then it’s straight to qualifying.’  With a round of practice opening qualifying day, the run determining how drivers will roll out for the first of the five scheduled rounds of qualifying, asked where he felt he was at with his program, Kaerup replied, ‘We are definitely a lot closer than earlier but there is still some overall consistency that is needed to be gotten on the top.’

Summing up his seeding effort, Kobbevik said, ‘I was running in a new set of tyres in the second one so the car was understeering but I tried to push it around, run them in, and get a good 5-minutes even with my mistake after the triple.’  He continued, ‘The car is good, but maybe we will try some small stuff in the morning and go from there.  Being overall Top 3 all the time and improving the car every run we are happy with that.’  Asked if the experience of 2WD and knowing how the track changes over the day would help in terms of making the right set-up changes for the conditions, the 19-year-old said, ‘I think it’s a bit similar but the first qualifier tomorrow will be high grip so it should be quite close set-up wise but it depends if they water the track much tonight how it will be in the morning.  Even though the morning practice is going to be a bit muddy I want to try something to find more speed for sure.’

A driver who is clearly looking in much higher spirts than earlier in the week, on his Top 3 seeding Phend said, ‘I think seeding went well.’  He xontinued, ‘The first run I just wanted to have a clean 5-minute run.  I did that and was consistent and had decent pace and then this next one I had a couple of small mistakes but picked a little bit of speed and it felt like the car was more into the track.’  Looking to Day 2 of the 4WD action the ROAR National Champion said, ‘we will make a couple of small changes for tomorrow but I feel like we’re pretty close to where we need to be and we are just going to be making changes depending on the track condition at what time we run.’

Winner of the European 4WD Championship title at the start of August, Ronnefalk said, ‘The seeding rounds have been pretty solid.  I think the speed has been there and we have just been trying a few thinks to decide for tomorrow what we want to do in terms of shock package and a couple of things on the rear end but I think that we figure it out now in the last one.  I felt I had a bit more stability in the rear which I was looking for so I am not going to go crazy and change too much for tomorrow.  I will keep it somewhat close to this and see how the conditions are.’  With seeding based on 3-consecutive laps asked his feeling on his 5-minute pace, the Swede said, ‘I think the 5-minutes are also good, I was pushing a little hard there and had two crashes but when I am driving like I should be I feel like the balance of the car is good and I am able to be pretty consistent over the 5-minute run.  The first one was a little bit better if I look at my 5-minute pace but obviously the second one I was a little bit faster on laps.’  He added, ‘I have also being breaking in tyres so I have to decide whether I want to go fresher like a high pin or small pin tomorrow.  I saw some of the guys in the last heat were pretty low on the thread in the centre of the tyre so I think that is what you want when the track is at least dry then we will have to decide whether we want to go like that also for the damp conditions in the morning, that is something for us to discuss tonight.’

The current US 2WD National Champion, Schimmel said, ‘The car is working a lot better obviously, the team has been working really well trying a lot of stuff out and all us kind of working in different avenues trying to find the best thing and then kind of converge on one.  I think it is going to be good for tomorrow.’  Asked what the main changes he made over the day were to improve his buggy, the 23-year-old said, ‘Really just messing with suspension and I think everyone here is.  Just trying to add a little more rear grip, the track is kind of polished over a little bit with the 4WDs.  I think everyone is complaining about that, so just trying to add a balance between grip and steering is really the biggest thing.’  Asked about his 5-minute consistency, he replied, ‘I am going to go back to what I was running in the first round of seeding and I think it will be OK.’

Aakws about his seeding runs, Ongaro replied, ‘Like I said before we are not changing much on the car but definitely we made a big improvement so I tried to push in this one (CP2) and I feel like if I push I can find a good lap and if I stay with my rhythm I can drive faster without crashing so we have a good qualifying car.’  The Italian added, ‘Tomorrow we will try another body and see which one I prefer.  I had planned to try the S15 in seeding but kept the F2 because we changed the car and we wanted see the difference with the car and the same body.’

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