Yokoyama Top Qualifier at inaugural Asia Nitro Party
In a Mugen Seiki duel for the overall TQ honours in 1:8 Onroad at the inaugural Asia Nitro Party race, it was O.S. Speed’s Sinnosuke Yokoyama who delivered in Q4 to deny Q1 & Q2 winner JJ Wang from becoming Top Qualifier on home soil. Taking place at the impressive Hongyu GDC track in China, fuel consumption caused issues in the first half of qualifying with Wang’s decision to stop for fuel playing in his favour as others came up short over the 4-minutes. For the final two qualifiers however Yokoyama would get everything perfectly aligned. Taking Q3 ahead of Nicole Marron’s Infinity and Wang similat O.S. powered MRX7, the Japanese driver repeated in the fourth & final round and with that time the fastest run of the day he secured the overall TQ at the new high profile international nitro onroad event. With Wang putting in an all out effort to try and hold on to the top spot in Q4, he would hit the curbing and send his car airborne, ending what has been an impressive performance on his 1:8 Onroad return. Behind, a consistent effort from Hotrace’s Nicole Marrone saw his Infinity end qualifying in third place. Ending his day with his best run by 3-seconds, for another P3 run, Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani completed the Top 4. The driver to set the pace in practice yesterday, Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura would finally get a decent run in Q4, but despite the P2 effort he ended qualifying down in P14 to make the back end of the Semi finals grid.
Asked about finding the run time for the last two rounds, Yokoyama gestured that it was through very small tuning adjustment to his O.S engine’s carburettor that he was able to execute his two TQ runs without encountering fuel issues. On his game plan for the final, the 33-year-old said he won’t change the car set-up and he also feels his tyre wear is good enough to consider the option of running the full 45-minutes without a tyre stop. With his own practice session in the timetable tomorrow as the only direct qualifier in to the Main, he said will finalise his strategy after seeing how the track evolves tomorrow with it set to be much warmer than today which was in turn much warmer than yesterday.
Reacting to his Q4 effort Wang said, ‘I was trying to lift the entire run and make run time as that was the only way to ensure I had the TQ because my team-mate can finish his runs. Tried it and it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.’ Changing to going the full 4-minutes without a stop for Q3 he said that run ‘was just slow’ after some set-up changes that didn’t work out. For the last qualifier, he said ‘I knew my team-mate could easily finish so I had to try something to secure it. The car was better the last round so I am looking forward to tomorrow and we’ll go from there adding ‘but as everyone knows it is nitro racing and anything car happen.’
With the growth of his Hotrace tyres and Lens Bodies businesses limiting his ability to race himself these days, on his P3 showing Marrone said, ‘The other drivers had a problem with the fuel, I also had the same problem but I just managed it better.’ The Italian continued, ‘then in the last run I tried to go easy the first 2-minutes and push the last 2 but then I ran out of fuel so you just have to drive safety to not run out of fuel.’ With his last competitive 1:8 outing last year’s European Champion in Halifax in the UK and the previous race to that one & a half years ago, the Italian said, ‘I have a car that is not 100% mine. I asked some friends for help so Lamberto (Collari) gave me some parts, then Antonio my friend prepared the car for me because I am not prepared for racing anymore but I enjoy as always & it is fun for me to go back racing.’ A man who knows his tyres, all the 1:8 Onroad racers using a handout tyre from Hotrace here in Foshan, Marrone said, ‘The tyre wear here is OK but I think everyone has to make one full tyre change in the final.’ He added, ‘on my side I want to try make a risk and make 4-minutes in the finals because compared to the young guys I am slower. I’m missing 2/10th (of a second a lap) so I think I try to make four minutes tomorrow have two stops less and we see how it works out.’
‘The last round was good, the car is fast now but we lost always time because of the fuel stop’ was how Catanzani summed up Q4. He added, ‘We already knew we can’t TQ but I am happy about the performance of the car so we will see what we can do tomorrow in the Semi Final.’ Asked about fuel stops in the finals, the World Championship Top Qualifier replied, ‘You just have to do what you can do’ hinting that he wasn’t going to try go long or risky with his strategy. The 20-year-old also feels others won’t take the risk to go 4-minutes either. Asked about the improvement to his car at the end of the day, he explained, ‘the car was always fast but difficult to drive so it was difficult to be consistent but now the car is maybe not fast like before but more consistent, and that was from a little change in out set-up.’
Suffering a middle shaft bearing failure in Q3 adding to his Q1 DNF after crashing into another car which traction rolled ahead of him, Matsukura said he needed a result from the final qualifier. Opting to achieve that with a fuel stop, he said this mean’t he could push without having to worry about run time and he was able to push from the first lap through to the last lap but with the stop costing 6-seconds he said it was always going to be hard to get a very good time. Rebuilding his car after the Q1 crash but struggling with how it felt in Q2, asked if he found something else damaged he confirmed the top deck was discovered to be broken. Replacing this for Q3 he said immediately the car felt good in the warm-up but then the bearing failed. While he still has to get through his Semi Final, on the Main final the 2018 Nitro Touring Car World Champion said, ’45-minutes is long and on this track there is much happening.’ He also added, ‘On big tyres not everyone’s car is good but I think my car is good with big or small.’
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