Polito tops seeding at SIGP in China

Sworkz’s Mattia Polito is the top seed at the SIGP Offroad Race in Xiamen, the Italian fastest in both Nitro and Electric Buggy on the return of China’s biggest annual offroad race after a 5-year break.  Over 3-consecutive laps of the challenging 3-Circles track, overnight repairs making for improved conditions for today’s two seeding rounds, Polito would go fastest in both ahead of Xray’s Bruno Coelho.  It was however the first round that was the fastest for the 21-year-old who had 1.6-seconds on Coelho.  With Coelho’s fastest time coming from CP2, the margin on that occasion was down to 2/10ths of a second as Polito’s best was 7/10ths slower than his earlier attempt.  Behind Davide Ronnefalk took his Xray to the 3rd fastest time with his CP1 time ahead of Davide Ongaro, the reigning World Champion improving by over a 1-second in CP2.  WIRC’s Gabriel Astorino and Mayako’s Joseph Quaqraine completed the Top 6.

With this his first visit to the SIGP, Polito was pleased with his performance in seeding describing it as ‘pretty good’.  The 2021 Italian National Champion is also liking the track layout if not the surface adding ‘it’s bumpy but the racing line I like.’   Switching to a different Matrix tyre for the second practice run, he said, ‘It was not fast like the previous one so we go back for the first quali’.   Having been Ongaro’s main title challenger in the Italian National Championship the last 3-seasons, looking towards qualifying he said he confident that he can transfer his seeding pace to a consistent 7-minute qualifier.

Summing up his seeding performance as ‘pretty good’, Coelho added, ‘we are still trying some tyres.  The car is working pretty good now so we are just trying to find out the tyres.  In the morning the track is a bit wet and during the day it starts to become drier and the compounds change completely the grip.  I was changing the tyres during the run and at the end I was able to run 3 pretty good laps’.  Using Hotrace’s Bangkok tyre, he said ‘from super soft to medium it works pretty ok depending on the time of the day so we need to find the best solutions for this.’  Having admitted yesterday that the track was challenging he feels, ‘today seems to be easier to drive than yesterday, I think they fixed some jumps which was the biggest trouble yesterday, this has made it was drivable and more, lets say more, racing that before.’

His first Nitro Buggy race since the World Championship in Redovan, Ronnefalk said, ‘I tried tyres in both rounds, the first round I came into pit and tried different compounds, I ended up liking the second one better which was the (Hotrace) Bangkok Super Soft.  Then for the last one I decided to try something else on the tyres, a different compound again just to see because we don’t have a lot of tyres between Bruno and myself.  We have to make sure we have enough for the whole race.  So I just checked how another one felt but in the 2nd seeding is was not really working well.  The car felt good and everything but I had no lap time speed cause I had not traction.  The car was been feeling good today after some changes this morning.’   Asked if he noticed the track repairs, the Swede said, ‘the first couple of runs in the morning has always been nicer than the last few, it seems the grip is a little higher in the morning when the track is a bit damp but as soon as it dries out those small little bumps get sharper again and its difficult towards the afternoon to drive.’   Looking to Q1, having taken the opening eBuggy qualifier, he explained, ‘I was able to TQ eBuggy and I am running the same set-up on both cars so it is just a matter of collecting data we have had so far from all our tyres tests because it looks like the tyre is making the most difference out there, of course the shock package and everything is important but the track gets kind of polished after lunch so then you have a lot less grip than in the morning.’

Without out his father as his pitman this weekend, former World Champion Adrien Bertin filling that role here, Ongaro said, ‘We struggled a little bit with the set-up compared to two days ago.  We started with a good base but then after one practice the car start to make strange things so we struggle a lot with the set-up.’   Second fastest in the opening eBuggy qualifier, he continued, ‘Now we change for the eBuggy and it seems like the car was really really better, I feel I can push so I will put the same setting on my nitro for Q1 and see if that makes he difference.  If yes we start from that point again.  I think now changing a few small things makes a huge difference, the consistency was much better than before.’