Catazani takes penultimate qualifier, all to play for in Chile

Serpent’s Andrea Catazani has taken the penultimate round of qualifying at the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship, his second TQ run meaning it is all to play for in Chile between the Italian and Xray talent Maxime Ripoll.  With both drivers having two TQ runs each, Q6 will decide who will the Top Qualifier at the 24th running of the RC racing’s original World Championship.  With three drivers still in contention going into the fifth round, Toni Gruber’s challenge would end with a bang as he crashed his Capricorn in the fifth minute of the 7-minute heat to be one of a number of cars not to finish the top heat.  Having opened the day with his second TQ run, and a new fastest time, Ripoll would also have a mistake but while he could continued his performance was hampered by his body rubbing off his front left tyre.  With Simon Kurzbuch another non-finisher due to his engine stopping after going too lean, Ripoll would net himself a P3.  Setting the fastest lap of the heat, up front Catanzani would take the heat with a one & a half second advantage over Mugen Seiki’s Shoki Takahata.

‘Super happy with that one’, was Catanzani’s reaction to his second TQ run, the 20-year adding, ‘Now we will see in the last one but I am happy that we can fight until the last round.’  Already a World Championship Top Qualifier at the CACH track, that honour happening at the 1:8 GT Worlds back in September, he continued, ‘I am happy with how the car works with these hot conditions.  We changed a few little things, so little but they makes a big difference.’  Asked if they would make any additional changes for the final qualifier he replied, ‘No, no, we just stay with this and see how the fight goes.’  On his refuelling, Ripoll’s pit stops leaving his rivals scratching their heads as to how they are so fast, he said, ‘it was no problem.  My dad has working on it so I a really happy that he is now good.’

Takahata was much happier with his second run of this the second day of qualifying saying a change to his MRX7’s shock package had improved the car.  After a number of driver error’s yesterday while on potential TQ runs, the 31-year-old said today the focus is on putting in ‘safe drives’ as the 2019 World Champion looks to lock a Top 4 qualification ranking so as to go directly into Saturday’s 1-hour final.  Planning another change for Q6, while not disclosing what that change would be he did confirm it wasn’t a further change to the shocks but a different area of the car.’

Giving a rundown on his Q5, 19-year-old Ripoll explained, ‘I made a mistake at the beginning and my body was stuck in the tyres so the car was pretty strange to drive but we will see in the last one, it’s all in.’  Asked further about his mistake, getting his body to show the damage, the European Championship podium finisher said, ‘I touched the inside of the corner and the body was stuck in (from the impact) and touching the tyre.’