Coelho takes eBuggy win at SIGP
Bruno Coelho has taken the eBuggy win at the annual Sunpadow International Grand Prix, the Infinity driver pocketing himself almost $2,800 for his efforts around the challenging 3 Circles track in Xiamen, China. Lining up as the Top Qualifier, the Portuguese driver taking pole position counting 2 TQ runs & a P2 from the 5-rounds of qualifying, it would be the Xray of 2024 winner David Ronnefalk who would be his biggest challenger in the finals. Starting from P2 on the grid having topped 2 qualifiers together with a P3, Ronnefalk would have the fastest car in A1 and while the Swede piled the pressure on Coelho he couldn’t find a way to the front, a number of mistake meaning he had to catch back up for repeated attempts. In A2 again Coelho wasn’t the outright fastest on the bumpy track but he had the consistency and after some early challenges from Ronnefalk he would take win to wrap up the overall victory. Ronnefalk’s challenge ultimately ended when he tangled with third place qualifier Kouki Kato, waiting on the Japanese driver who needed to be marshalled after the contact. With Kato’s Infinity recording the fastest lap he would finish 2nd ahead of Ronnefalk as they both retook the Mayako of Pekko Iivonen who buckled under the pressure while holding second going into the final stages of the race. With Coelho using A3 as a test session and not taking up pole position, the race would see Ronnefalk take the win ahead of Iivonen and Kouki, the latter have a costly off while holding second and having to work his way back up in to the Top 3. This result meant Ronnefalk (2nd) and Kato (3rd) would join Coelho on the eBuggy podium while Iivonen claimed fourth ahead of Team Associated’s Jung Hyunkyu and SIGP regular Joseph Quagraine.
A driver who has enjoyed a long term relationship with Sunpadow as his battery sponsor, reacting to his win, Coelho said, ‘It is always fantastic to win at Sunpadow, it’s always great to be here and say thanks for all the support during the year.’ He continued, ‘The track is very characterful. I know it doesn’t suit maybe everybody but everyone who comes here knows it is like this and it’s very tough. It’s almost like the TITC (touring car race in Thailand), it’s a track that is not fantastic asphalt but every goes there every year because it is very challenging and I think this race is exactly the same as that. You need to work a lot and make the car good for the race.’ On the eBuggy finals, the winner of the SIGP Onroad race earlier in the year said, ‘The first A-Main was very tough with David all 10-minutes. He would do some mistakes and come back very strong. I just wanted to play safe to get some result because in such tough conditions it is very easy to make a mistake and be back in the pack fighting for the middle positions which is always very hard. So I just tried to not force anything and just drive and finish the run, and luckily for me the other guys were doing many mistakes. David made a lot of pressure and for the last three laps we were very close together. I was defending well and he was also attacking very well & very respectfully and we finished 1 and 2. In A2 I tried to be more aggressive and not as defensive as A1 because I already had one result. I think I was able to show a little more pace and then slowly pulled away.’
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