Video – Super Pole

Mongkolphan takes penultimate qualifier in Thailand

Thai driver Game Mongkolphan claimed a surprise TQ run in the penultimate round of qualifying at the IFMAR 1:10 Nitro World Championship as he became the fourth different driver to top the times at the challenging Huge RC Circuit in Bangkok.  A finalist when the track hosted the same World Championship 10-years-old Mongkolphan would take Q5 from Capricorn’s Toni Gruber with former World Champion Naoto Matsukura finally producing a strong run to complete the Top 3 ahead 2022 finalist Chavit Saligupta.  A driver who was capable of wrapping up the overall TQ with one round to go it wasn’t to be for Q3 & 4 winner Teemu Leino, the Finn struggling with his set-up in the fifth round.  Fastest in Q2, Dario Balestri found himself with a P5 for the round.

‘This is so very crazy to TQ with so many top drivers here, I am just the local driver so it is unbelievable’, was Mongkolphan reaction to taking a World Championship TQ at his home track.  The 26-year-old Infinity driver continued, ‘I had a lot of mistakes before, sometimes flip, sometime open a little bit wide but now the time is really stable.  No fast like before stable.’  Asked about changes for the final qualifier, the Bangkok driver replied, ‘We change only the gear diff, more harder because I drive really soft and now I follow what the other (Infinity) drivers do’.

Summing up his latest qualifying effort, Gruber said, ‘For this run we had the option to use new tyres or maybe a mix of the first set and the second set, we decided to go with the small tyres but in the end we ran out of tyre and the chassis was touching the track.’  The 1:8 GT World Champion continued, ‘now we have to use new ones, we have to see how the car works but normally with new tyres we have less steering and it’s more critical to flip.  We will see because before we didn’t have a car working like it is now to try new tyres so we will see if it works or not.’

‘Finally I can drive but the last lap I made a mistake and lost 1-second.  Without it was an easy TQ’, was Matsukura’s response to recording his first Top 10 run.  The multiple discipline World Champion who is running in the second fastest heat along with Gruber explained, I changed clutch for the last round yesterday because it was shit before.  That run was good but then I made two mistakes that cost be 7-seconds.  In the first one this morning I had a problem with the side pulley and didn’t start but now everything was good except I had a mistake on the last lap’.  Switching to the same clutch set-up as his team-mate Leino, he said this gave him a more consistent & less difficult car adding his ‘engine felt broken’ with the previous clutch.  Needing a good Q6 run to round out qualifying and try move himself up the ranking into a better starting position in the Semi Finals, the 2018 Champion feels he has the car to get a TQ and says the plan is to ‘push, push’.

Asked what his issue was in Q5, Leino laughed and replied, ‘we tried a change on the set-up and it was not drivable’.  The Finn, who is chasing a repeat overall TQ he achieved here at the same track a decade ago explain,  ‘It was just a little change but this track is extremely sensitive to changes.  For the next one we will go back to what we had before.’

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Leino first to double in qualifying in Bangkok

12-years ago he was the Top Qualifier when Thailand hosted the World Championships for the first time and now this morning as the country hosts the 1:10 Nitro’s biggest race for a third time, Infinity driver Teemu Leino has kicked off Day 2 of qualifying as the first driver to deliver a second TQ run and move in on pole for Saturday’s final.  With Day 1 of qualifying seeing a different driver at the top each round it was the Finn who closed yesterday’s action by topping Q3 and this morning he has pick back up where he left off to top Q4 from the Capricorn of Toni Gruber who opened qualifying at the 10th running of the World Championship with the fastest time.  Overall it was a good round for Italian manufacturer Capricorn, a huge improvement from 2012 World Champion Meen Vejrak would see the Thai driver get a P3 for the round ahead of Q2 winner Dario Balestri and Swede Viktor Wilck.

Summing up his second TQ run, it being slightly slower than his Q3 time, Leino said, ‘I had the one mistake but still got the run by 2/10th so it OK.  I had a 1-second spin on the straight so I could have gone faster without that’.  On the mistake he explain, ‘It was just a spin on the sweeper, I don’t know why maybe I hit a bump or something I don’t know.’  Looking to the penultimate round of qualifier when he could lock in the overall TQ for Saturday’s 1-hour World title decider he said, ‘We’ll just keep everything the same and try to make one more.  The speed is good, all is good.’

Finishing 0.268 of a second off Leino, Gruber said, ‘For me the feeling was good, we just lost the TQ run now in the first & third lap.  I made 15.8 laps.’  Asked if he had particular issues on those laps he replied, ‘They were just slow laps, there was no traffic, it was just the wrong lines and it was a little slower, P2 is still really good.’  Running the second fastest heat asked if he felt this was in anyway hampering his qualifying being unable to gauge his actually pace against his main rivals who are all in the top heat he said, ‘For sure if you have the same pace as the other guys then you have no traffic normally but here now in this run I had completely no traffic so it was perfect for me.’  On his set-up the German plans to go back a little with the caster for the increased grip the track gets over the day.

Taking his World Title at the other of Bangkok’s famous tracks RC Addict, home to the famous annual TITC, Vejrak was happy to finally find himself in the mix at these Worlds.  He explained, ‘After yesterday, I had a lot of problems, I just tried to keep today clean and get a run with no mistakes.  I was getting a little bit faster each lap but I had one lap in which I had a spin and this cost me a TQ run.  It was almost a 16-second lap and that was the difference to the TQ.’  Still happy to come away with P3, he said, ‘Now I am back in the game and have a chance to win again’.  Asked about his Day 1 problems he said, ‘many small things but causing big problems like trust bearing break before the start of one heat.  But today we have made a good start and now I have good points to make a fight.’

Asked how his Q4 had gone Balestri replied, ‘there was a little bit traffic and maybe my tyres were too small in the end, the car was too loose in the end.’  Finishing 1.8-second down on his team-mate Leino at the end of the 7-miute qualifier, the reigning European Champion added, ‘the start was ok but then they just got too low so we need to think what to do for the next one.’

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