Bernadzik ‘Top Qualifier’ at ABC Indonesia with blistering Q5 run

Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik is the Top Qualifier at the Asian Buggy Championships Finale in Indonesia, the Australian putting together a blistering Q5 run to secure pole for tomorrow’s 1-hour Nitro Buggy main on the tie-breaker with Pekko Iivonen.  Having hinted in the penultimate round of quali that he had the potential to better Iivonen’s Q2 time, a mistake on lap 6 of 8 ending that effort, with nothing to lose Bernadzik went for it in the decider.  Opening with a 41.7 second lap he then added to his tally of fastest laps for each round by taking the benchmark down to a 41.098 with Iivonen unable to respond.  Passing Sparko’s Ken NG on his final lap with just two corners to go, he look like he might again through it away when he clipped the pipping and sending his RC8 into a spin.  Luckily he bounced off NG’s buggy to recover facing in the right direction and most importantly crossing the loop with a time that bettered Iivonen’s Q2 by 1.5-seconds.  Despite adding a 3rd TQ run to his tally when he took Q4, with only 2 from 5 to count, Iivonen will start P2 tomorrow at West Side Raceway.  Counting P2 runs from Q3 & 4, Hyunkyu Jung will line-up 3rd on the grid ahead of Indonesia’s very own Jason Nugroho.  Newly crowned FEMCA Champion Jayden Edmunds completes the Top 5 on what will become a 15-car final after bump ups from the lower finals.

‘I made it happen’, was a very pleased Bernadzik’s reaction to taking Q5.  He continued, ‘I was a bit apprehensive about what the track was going to be like cause the afternoon runs have been a little bit slower but once Scotty (Ernst) starting calling lap times I was like oh we’ve got a chance to take the overall.’  He added, ‘I stayed locked in and was just throwing out some good laps I guess.’  On his moment on the final lap, he admitted, ‘I was pretty lucky Ken saved me a bit there, it could have been a lot worse.’  On his Q4 run, he said ‘the car was really good, I just crashed which was totally my fault.’  Looking to the final, the ABC Australia race winner said, ‘It’s anyone’s race really, everyone is so closely paced.  To have the Top 3 within a second of each other after a 5-minute run is just crazy.  It’s definitely going to be a good battle tomorrow in the hour long main.’  On preparing for the final physically, the 26-year-old said, ‘we are going to have to keep the fluids up during the day and make sure to not stay in the sun too much.’  Regarding run time, Bernadzik said they would ‘play it pretty safe and probably run 7:30 (stops).  We are not going to stretch it anything longer than that cause in a 1-hour long main the track is going to get dustier.’  On tyres he will continue with Hotrace’s super soft Sahara.

Impressed by Bernadzik Q5 effort, Iivonen said, ‘I was quite surprised how the track was today in the afternoon, it was much faster than yesterday.  We tried everything but Alex was faster in the last one.’  He continued, ‘It was quite close but I think I need a little bit more probably forward traction so we will try to find something for that.  We should have a practice tomorrow to try something.’  Asked if that was going to be on the car or tyre related he replied, ‘I think we are going to try the Hotrace tyres to see.  He (Bernadzik) is running them and the pace is quite fast on this conditions so we are going to try that and see the difference.’  Up to now, Iivonen has been running Green compound JConcepts Dirt Wed 2 tyres on his Mayako.  The Top Qualifier here in eBuggy, the Team Cayote backed driver said he is going to try do the same thing he did in eBuggy qualifying and ‘pull away from the start and make clean 7-minutes’, the triple finals here reduced to 7-minutes as a precaution in the high temperatures.

Reacting to his P3 starting position, Team Associated’s Jung said, ‘P3 is OK but I wanted more.  I think we definitely have some speed today but I made some mistakes and also had problems with traffic but it’s a 1-hour final so the qualifying is not going to make a difference.’  The up & coming Korean talent said, ‘Everything can happen in a race this long but I think we are in good shape.’  Asked about tyre wear in the final, the 16-year-old felt, ‘tyre wear seems a little bit more compared to what we had the last couple of days but I think super soft Sahara should be OK for the full race.  I will have a fresh set for the main.’

Putting his IFB8 4th on the grid, Infinity driver Nugroho said, ‘my car has felt better and better each run but I tried something for the last round and it was probably a bit too much.  I kept crashing, but overall I am pretty satisfied with fourth and hopefully I can do better tomorrow in the final with a clean run and faster pace.’  On tyres, having started the event with a limit amount of Proline Slide Lock tyres, he said, ‘I am kind of torn between running the Sahara or Slide Lock for tomorrow, because when it gets very very dusty like in the finals I think Slide Lock will be better but then I will be letting go the forward bite the Sahara gives.  So we will see how the track is tomorrow.’  With 1-hour finals standard issue here in Jakarta at his home track, Nugroho said this is why he his torn on what to run saying, ‘usually after 20-minutes when the sun is up the dust is just all over the place covering up the lines.’