2 from 2 for Iivonen as last lap error costs Bernadzik Q2
Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen made it 2 from 2 on the opening day of qualifying at the fourth & final round of the Asian Buggy Championships in Indonesia, the Finn taking Q2 after a late mistake by Top Seed Alex Bernadzik. Having topped the opening qualifier, Iivonen set the early pace of the afternoon run but again setting the fastest lap of the round Bernadzik’s Team Associated went to the top of the timing screens 2-minutes into the 5-minute qualifier. On the final lap however a mistake from the Australian would see him drop 1-second on his previous lap time, allowing Iivonen to top times by 1.061 of a second. Behind it was Korean teenager Hyunkyu Jung who posted the third fastest time ahead of Jason Nugroho and Sparko’s Jayden Edmunds.
Summing up his perfect day and his Q2 run, Iivonen said, ‘the car was really really good and I think there was a bit more grip on the track or in the tyres, either way it felt super super nice.’ He continued, ‘I caught up someone in the middle of the qualifier and got a bit held up but then caught it back up at the end. JQ was saying that I was a couple of tenths from the TQ and then I just pushed the last lap and I was able to get the TQ done.’ Looking to tomorrow’s second day of qualifying, 3 more rounds to run with drivers counting their best two from the total of five, on any car changes Iivonen said, ‘There is nothing on my mind right now to change for tomorrow but I will glue a new set of tyres and see what I will do with them.’
‘It was pretty smooth sailing until I made a meal of it on the last lap’, was Bernadzik reaction to throwing away a TQ run. He added, ‘the car was really good there. I went a little less rear toe which helped so I am glad I did that and I could probably go less again as the car was really still locked in. It was really easy to drive but I just needed it a bit more aggressive.’ On his mistake he said, ‘It was just my bad. I clipped the pipe and got stuck in the infield and had to drive back on to the track so it cost me a bit over a second. So it would have made it really close at the end there. We’ve got three more to go so we’ll try work some magic tomorrow’. Taking the eBuggy TQ for the second round, he said that buggy ‘was a lot better’ the second time round and for the morning he will drive both buggies unchanged.
Despite his P3 for the round, Jung was very dejected by how his Team Associated performed. He said, ‘the car is not working out there, it is so difficult to drive, I don’t know what is wrong.’ Fitting a new set of tyres for the run but otherwise making no changes to how he ran in Q1, he continued, ‘I know on new tyres it will be loose at the beginning but it wasn’t the tyre, the car felt like something is broken.’ Planning a full rebuild of his Nitro buggy, the 16-year-old concluded, ‘we still have 3 more rounds left and where you start in a 1-hour final is not that important so we will try a few things tomorrow to try get the car right for the main.’
Having lacked the grip he was expecting in Q1, on his Q2 performance Infinity’s Nugroho said, ‘I changed the car’s geometry and it got better. I had more steering and I was able to push the car a little bit more but I had two laps in a row with mistakes which cost me a couple of seconds.’ Describing his buggy as feeling more comfortable now compared to seeding, the Indonesian driver says he is feeling more confident for Saturday’s action. Improving his buggy with a set-up change between the first two qualifiers he said having found a good base to work from he plans on few tweaks to that set-up to try further improve the buggy. Asked how he is finding tyre wear now that everyone is saucing their tyres, West Side Raceway his home track, he explain, ‘We have never had to change tyres because this track has never had tyre wear but now with saucing we are seeing tyre wear for the first time’, joking, ‘finally tyre wear at this track.’