Catanzani Top Seed in Chile, as Ripoll impresses with P2

Andrea Catanzani is the Top Seed for the 24th running of the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship but it is the pace of French driver Maxime Rapoll which is the big surprise in Chile.  The Top Qualifier at the 1:8 GT Worlds back in September, Catanzani’s Serpent would top the times in opening and closing runs of the day, the schedule made up of fourth seeding rounds.  In the second round it was Rapoll’s Xray that raised a few eyebrows as he set the fastest time ahead of 2019 World Champion Shoki Takahata.  Round 3 would see Takahata go fastest and the factory Mugen Seiki driver seeds 3rd for qualifying tomorrow when we will have the first 3 of the 6 rounds of 7-minute qualifiers.  After a bad start to seeding, Toni Gruber would make it four different manufacturers at the top as the Capricorn driver solved his engine/glowplug issues and managed a 4th and a 3rd to end the day 4th.  One of the favourites coming into this World Championship, Japan 2023 Top Qualifier Simon Kurzbuch, didn’t have the day he was looking for finding himself in P5 and with work to do for tomorrow.  Celebrating his birthday today, drivers from the 16 nations racing at these Worlds singing Happy Birthday to him at the end of the opening ceremony, British driver Alex Thurston made it three Mugen MRX7s in the Top 6.

Summing up his day, the first stage in his quest to become a World Champion perfectly executed, Catanzani explained, ‘We work really well on the car, changing little things that make the car different and we choose the right set-up for the last seeding practice.  We need to test something more tomorrow morning to get it perfect but of course the quali will be close with all these guys.  Also because it is 7-minutes you have to be consistent.’  Asked if it is a difficult track to be consistent, the 20-year-old replied, ‘Yes, because I think when your mechanic tells you your lap time you want to push more but if you do you end up hitting something, so you have to be calm and smooth.’  Happy the race, drivers having been on track since Friday, is going to plan asked about the wind, which was particular bad this evening, the Italian said, ‘It was bad but we work all the days for this because all the evening are like this so we work to have a fast car in the morning and a fast car in the afternoon.’  On a positive about the wind, he said, ‘it is always in one direction so when you arrive in that corner with the wind behind you have to stay a little bit safer than in the morning.’

Pleased with P2 modestly describing it as ‘pretty good’, Rapoll said he lacked a little speed in the final seeding round because they changed to his spare engine, but given the conditions of the wind and the hot track he said his RX8 was still good.  On the wind and the challenges for driver he explained, ‘It makes it pretty difficult because it is unpredictable and you can’t do anything on the car for it so it is a bit of luck driving when it catches you.  You just have to deal with it and cross the fingers that you are a bit lucky.’  With his 3-lap pace looking very strong, his best time only 5/100ths of a second off Catanzani, asked how he felt he his long run pace is, the 19-year-old replied, ‘For me it is more easy to drive a longer run.  The car is pretty good and easy to drive so I am looking forward to the qualifying and running for 7-minutes.’

Takahata summed up his P3 with ‘so, so’ explaining that he had a mistake on the third lap of each of his counting runs.  The newly crowned Japanese National Champion said his car, engine, and overall package is good but he will make a change for tomorrow to try and get a little more steering.  Flying the flag for reigning World Champion engine tuner Max Power, the 27-year-old will also ‘turn up the power’ on his engine for qualifying.

With his crew’s thoughts that a bad batch of glow plugs was the reason for his engine issues in the first two seeding rounds proving correct, with a plug from a different batch getting his Ielasi Tuned engine back to speed again, Gruber was relieved to solve that issue but with the wind picking up for the afternoon the German driver said ‘Round 3 the driving was difficult because of the wind.’  While getting himself into the top heat of qualifying, the final round his best ranking of the day, the reigning ENS Champion added, ‘we still need to improve the balance of the car to have a better feeling and to overall to have better corner speed.  We tried something for the last round and luckily it paid off for us and the car was much easier to drive.  So we hope to build on that positive for tomorrow.’

Reflecting on the first day that thing actually counted for anything, Kurzbuch said, ‘The day was not our best day.  The morning round was good, we had 2nd place but we were still not happy with the setting of the engine and from this point on somehow something went wrong and we have to do a complete rebuild of the car and check everything.  Somehow we couldn’t get an speed anymore.  The engines were good in practice and also the car so somehow there has to be a mistake somewhere.’  Asked if he was going to be in for a late & busy night, the 33-year-old replied, ‘No. We will know finish the day, and early tomorrow start off with a fresh brain and put everything together for tomorrow.’  On whether 7-minutes will suit him better or if the problem is bigger than just outright pace, he said, ‘for me I think I am faster over 7-minutes than 3-laps but of course today I was also not fast and the pace was not there yet.  We hope for a better day tomorrow.’