D’angelo is GT World Championship Top Qualifier

Genius Racing’s Alex D’angelo is the Top Qualifier for the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney Australia.  The Italian’s first World Championship, he secured pole position for Saturday’s 1-hour final when he backed up his Q5 TQ with another in the final round at the John Grant International Raceway.  Going into the decider as the only driver capable of topping overnight TQ holder Toni Gruber, he would produce another 24-lap run and with his Q5 time the quickest of the event he took the overall TQ on tiebreaker from Gruber.  A rough day for Gruber, qualifying didn’t end any better for the Hong Nor driver as suffered from too lean an engine and pulled in after 4-minutes.  Adding to the Genius team’s celebrations, reigning European GT Champion Bernard-Alain Arnaldi make it a 1-2 for the GT8.23 for the round putting the French driver into the four driver Super pole shoot out.  This was duly won by Gruber who now locks his place into the Main final while the rest have to come through the Semi Finals.  For reigning Champion Joern Neumann, a strong finish to Day 1 of qualifying, when he got a P3 in Q3, didn’t carry through to Day 2.  As a result the Sworkz driver will start out his title defence from 6th in the half hour Semi B having qualified 14th overall.

Reacting to securing the TQ for what is only the second running of the World Championship for GT, a very pleased D’angelo said, ‘I am super happy.  This is my first Worlds and there is not more I could hope for.’  He continued, ‘At the end our strategy worked and I am happy to get this hot weather as I knew we could got fast’.  With today the hottest day of the event, he has always been open about the hotter conditions suiting his car better.  Q6 was an anxious 7-minutes however, ‘My engine was really rich and I don’t know why so from the first lap I was scared I was going to run out of fuel.  I knew Jeff (Hamon) and Toni (Gruber) had problems so I was able to manage the throttle but it was close on the last lap.  My team-mate was behind me and I must thank him for managing the pace to help me.  Now I have the TQ I can relax until Saturday and check over the car. I want to thank all my sponsors especially Genius and Gimar for the support and super products.’

With the 2nd place through to 5th getting a shot at Super Pole shortly after the final qualifier, it was 5th place qualifier Arnaldi who went first.  Next to go was Hamon but unlike at the inaugural Worlds in Miami in 2020 when he won the Super Pole, the Serpent driver was not able to better the French driver’s best lap.  Xray’s Natanaele Senesi would be next to go, and the Italian would go to the top but a very fired up Gruber was still to come.  With a 3-minute warm-up followed by six time laps of which the best counts, his first lap booked his direct spot in the final but he wasn’t done continue for more laps until he parked his car in a corner marker.  Afterwards Gruber said, ‘Normally you can stop when you get a faster lap but I wanted to show how fast our car is.  With no runtime to worry about we changed to a different manifold and had a really quick engine.  While it was not the way I planned to make the final at least now we have the first part of our goal complete.

Genius Racing – Italian made, Italian driven!

Top Qualifier powered by Gimar.

Team Gruber powered by Ielasi Tuned.  Super Pole winners.

Friendly Italian rivalry!  Gimar Top Qualifier, Ielasi Tuned Super Pole winner.

View our event image gallery here.

D’angelo delivers TQ in penultimate qualifier

Genius Racing’s Alex D’angelo delivered a TQ run in the penultimate round of qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championship and in doing so has put himself in a position to deny Hong Nor’s Toni Gruber from becoming the early Top Qualifier in Sydney.   Yet again it was an action packed 7-minutes, the first casualty being Andrea Catanzani whose Serpent suffered a mechanical and was out after just 4-laps.  Up front his team-mate Jeff Hamon was setting the pace but his engine was too lean and the Australian was forced to pit to have it retuned ending his effort.  Toni Gruber, hoping to wrap up the overall TQ with a round to spare, would get hit not once but twice by other cars, putting him on the back foot.  In a close fight at the top of the timing screens with his team-mate D’angelo, Bernard-Alain Arnaldi would put his car on its roof and sliding across the grass where it needed to be marshal.  All the while D’angelo was having a clean run on new tyres delivering the TQ by a margin of 2.4-seconds over Gruber with Q4 winner Natanaele Senesi completing the Top 3.  Again another good run from the second fastest heat by local offroad racer Lachlan Donnelly who posted the fourth fastest time for the round which moves him into 7th overall.

‘The car was simple amazing, the engine, the fuel consumption, it was incredible’, was how D’angle summed up the TQ run he has been flagging for some time.  The Italian, who got a P4 on used tyres a round earlier, continued, ‘I was on all new tyres that I saved from yesterday and this morning and I was able to manage all the front grip and have a clean run.’  Now in contention for the overall TQ, looking to the final qualifier he said, ‘we are on the right road and for the last quali I have another new set of tyres so I will try to make another super round.  With no mistakes and luck I think we can manage another TQ.  At the end we see where we are.’

Asked about his Q5, a frustrated Gruber replied, ‘I had two crashes with others guys, but what can we do, other than this everything was good’.  Setting the fastest lap of the round, the European 1:1o Nitro Touring Car Champion goes into the final round with a new set of tyres. After a strong day yesterday when he took the opening two rounds, Gruber is having a more challenging day today and is determined to wrap up qualifying as he started it.  He concluded, ‘I have new tyres, I just need luck.’

‘It was a safe run, P3 is good’, was how Senesi summed up his latest effort.  He continued, ‘I was slow at the beginning because my engine was a little lean so I had to let it breath at the end of the straight.  I let Alex go by and then tried to keep at the back of him to gain some seconds”.  Sitting third in the standings, the Italian looks safe to make Super Pole which he outlined at the end of Day 1 of qualifying was his goal.

With only one club race as previous GT race experience, 1:10 Offroad racer Donnelly said his spike in form over the last two qualifiers was thanks to an engine he got from IGT8 owner Paolo Morganti.   Signing up for the World Championship on the grounds it was only 50-minutes from his home, on the new engine he has as his disposal the 19-year-old said, ‘the horse power difference is massive’.  Given his lack of knowledge of the category he said they have been making progress every run and he believes there is still more to come.  Struggling with brakes, he will switch from carbon to steel pads for the final qualifier.

Senesi takes Q4 at GT Worlds

Natanaele Senesi became the third different driver to TQ a round of qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championship, the Xray driver topping the fourth round on a hot morning in Sydney where the temperatures on Day 2 of qualifying are set to hit 33 degrees.   It was to be dramatic top heat that started with an early mistake from Q3 winner Andrea Catanzani, costing him over 2-seconds.  Next it was Jeff Hamon who was in trouble, the Serpent driver have brake issues for a third time of the event and he was out after 3-minutes.  Setting the fastest lap of the run as the only driver to run a 17-second lap, soon Catanzani was back in the hunt but he had Toni Gruber all over him, the Hong Nor driver having to lift on the straight so as not to run in the back of the Serpent.  With Catanzani opening to allow Gruber passed, shortly after the German would all on his own go off the track and across the grass losing over a second.  Catanzani looked like making it two TQ runs in a row but on the last lap he would run out of fuel with Senesi crossing the line to take it by 1.9-seconds from Gruber with the Genius pairing of Bernard-Alain Arnaldi and Alex D’angelo third & fourth ahead of Lachlan Donnelly who was running in the second fastest heat.

Overall Top Qualifier for the 1:8 GTe World Cup running alongside the World Championship, asked about his nitro TQ run, Senesi said, ‘I just tried to drive as safe as possible.  I was on new tyres in the back and old on the front so my goal was Top 3 as another good score would put me in Super Pole’.  He continued, ‘The hotter (the track) the better for me, it’s more grippy.  The car was super good and I was on a good run.  At the end I had lucky and could get the TQ.’

‘Just a stupid driver mistake, I can say no more’, was how Gruber summed up his moment during the qualifier.  Not entiring happy with his car he added, ‘we had a leak in the diff yesterday so we refilled it but we over filled it and it got too hot which made the car difficult to drive but it was the mistake that cost me the TQ run’.

Another to suffer a mistake was Arnaldi.  The French driver said his car was better but he had a spin that cost him 2-seconds.  Describing his car as ‘good but not perfect’, he feels ‘it is not possible to push without making 360 degrees’.  For the penultimate round he will ‘fine tune’ his set-up to try a get a better balance but he added this track is challenging for everyone.

D’angelo said, ‘I am happy with my qualifying because I was on all used tyres and I saw others were on new’.  Before the start I told my mechanic that we just drive and take no risk and see at the end were we are, so fourth is a good position’.   Looking to the final two qualifiers, the winner of this year’s Italian National GT Championship opener is feeling confident in the knowledge that he has two new sets of tyres at his disposal and hopes to capitalise on them and move himself up the qualifying ranking in which he currently sits 4th.