Gruber TQ’s opening qualifier at GT Worlds

Having laid down his intentions with the fastest time in this morning’s final practice, Hong Nor’s Toni Gruber delivered a TQ run in the opening round of qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney.  Despite run time for the 7-minute qualifiers a concern for everyone, the early pace was blistering and drivers would later pay.  Gruber pushed hard by Andrea Catanzani clearly managed the situation best as extra hot temperatures today added to the challenge and his work with engine tuner Daniele Ielasi clearly paying off.  A whole host of drivers came to a halt in the dying moments as they ran dry, the first of them being defending World Champion Joern Neumann.  Behind Gruber it would be Alex D’angelo who was second fastest as the Genius Racing team looked to have finally found their way.  Team-mate Bernard-Alain Arnaldi also had a strong Q1 securing P4 behind Top Seed Jeff Hamon who would suffer his second brakes issue of the event.

‘Now we learn from the first round, the high temperatures meant the consumption was more, we have to adapt as a driver to make the 7-minutes’, was Gruber reaction to taking the opening qualifier.  He continued, ‘ Catanzani was really fast.  I was thinking to push more to stay with him or to keep to my own style and save fuel.  He pushed too much and ran out of fuel.  My speed was good when I drive smooth like this so I think the others need to do something to make 7-minutes but will loose speed.  We are in a good position right now’.

D’angelo described his P2 as ‘not a bad start’ adding ‘it was a complete disaster yesterday’.  The Italian said, ‘We made a lot of set-up changes.  Our usual set-up is a lot different but today we find a good balance but it is still very tricky’.  Used to running a tyre combination where the rear tyre is a softer compound to the front, he described the rules here of running the same compound PMT handout tyre all round is ‘challenging’ adding it makes the car tricky in the corners but they are finally finding a way to deal with this.

Asked about his opening attempt, Hamon said, ‘I lost a brake pad and lost all brakes. I dialled up my dual rate until I ran out.  At that point I was going to pull out but I needed to see how run time was.  It’s close but not as bad as others.  Congrats to Toni.’   The Warm-up Race winner continued, ‘It is going to be tough at that pace, apart from Toni and what they are doing with Daniele, there is no chance (of making run time) at those lap times.  And the temperature is going to be even higher tomorrow.’

Summing up his P4, European GT Champion Arnaldi said it was ‘better for sure’.  The French driver continued, ‘I did a lot of work with my team-mate and we completely changed the car.  It’s better but not perfect but we are on a good way. With some fine tuning I hope we can make it better.’  Like his rivals when asked about run time his body language indicated it was borderline.

Hamon top seed as Gruber fastest in final practice

Serpent’s Jeff Hamon is the top seed for qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Australia but it was Hong Nor’s Toni Gruber who concluded practice with the fastest time for the fourth round.  With drivers best two point scores from the four rounds to count, Hamon, having topped the opening two rounds, will carry the No.1 in the top heat of qualifying.  With yesterday very much a Serpent stronghold with Gabriele Paloschi topping the third run as the manufacturer held the Top 3 overnight in seeding, Gruber this morning put in a blistering run setting a time of 54.504.  While some opted for new tyres to bolster their points tally and get a better heat for qualifying, behind Gruber Genius Racing’s Alex D’angelo had a good run to the second fastest time ahead of Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani.  While Hamon tried a different set-up, that clearly didn’t work, reigning World Champion Joern Neumann managed a competitive run taking his Sworkz to the fourth fastest time to end up 8th in the final seeding.

Commenting on his performance, Gruber said, ‘Actually it felt really slow’.  The German continued, ‘while I was feeling it was going to be slow the lap times were fast.  When you have a car that is easy to drive but the lap times are fast this is really good.’  Running used tyres, he said, ‘Now we have new tyres (for qualifying) so we will see’.  Asked about fuel consumption, as the emphasis changes from 3-laps to counting the full 7-minutes for qualifying, he said, ‘we have to check after that run.  We were a little too rich in the beginning of the run but we changed the manifold for better consumption and the engine feels good but we have to see what was left in the tank’.

‘A terrible run’, was how Hamon summed up the final practice.  The Australian explained, ‘I made an adjustment to the engine, it did not work.  I made an adjustment to the car, it also didn’t work.  But it was worth trying’.  With tyres a big topic of the event, this morning’s team manager meeting seeing IFMAR agree to permitting a tyre stop in the Main final due to wear concerns, in relation to the final practice Hamon added, ‘some sneaky competitors used new tyres that one’.  Asked about his car for qualifying, he said, ‘I’ll just go back to my previous set-up, some of the others in the team also tried what I did and had the same results so we’ll just revert back’.

Finishing up as the third seed for qualifying ahead of team mate Paloschi, Catanzani was quick to point out his final run was on old tyres adding ‘maybe other guys were on new tyres.’  Very happy with his P3 run, the 18-year-old added, ‘my car now is good, it’s fast.  I think we are really fast for qualifying.’

‘Much better this morning, it was good’, was how Neumann described his run.  Also running in the GTe World Cup that is running alongside the GT World Championships here at the John Grant International Raceway, he said, ‘I tried something on the electric car and it was good so I copied it on to the nitro car and it improved it a lot’.  Asked what the changes were he said, ‘we copied the toe in and made a change with the front diff.’  On tyres the German confirmed he was used tyres following it up with ‘did some people run on new?’

Paloschi denies Hamon in penultimate seeding round

An impressive run in the third & penultimate round of seeding practice by Serpent’s Gabriele Paloschi has denied team-mate Jeff Hamon from securing an early top seed status at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Australia this evening.  Running a heat earlier than the championship’s title favourites, Paloschi’s impressive time went pretty much unnoticed as Hamon went on to top the final heat of the round from Toni Gruber, which the Aussie and almost everyone else thought had secured him the top seed spot for qualifying.  Running his three laps in 55.844, European Championship podium finisher Paloschi had ran his in 55.821.  With the second round of seeding a repeat of the opening run, Hamon from Andrea Catanzani and Xray’s Natanaele Senesi, Paloschi topping the third round moves him up to third in Serpent lockout of the top 3 going into the final seeding run in the morning.

Having opened seeding with a P9 and followed that up with a P6, Paloschi was somewhat surprised with his zero points haul for round three.  Running an identical Gimar/Serpent chassis and engine combo to both Hamon and Catanzani, the 20-year-old said, ‘that time the car was really nice. It was difficult in the first round but step by step we improve it and in the cold conditions of the last one it was really good.  We see tomorrow how the car is in hot conditions.’  Asked about his pace over a full run rather than just 3-laps, he replied, ‘I am not known as the guy for the fast laps but over 7-minutes I feel comfortable.’

Asked about his run Hamon joked, ‘It was good until I found out I’m not top seed’.  He continued, ‘No it’s fine, he’s my team-mate so it’s all good’.  Having run the previous seeding round with a mission of warm-up, 3-laps, and done, the Worlds Warm-up Race winner said, ‘that was a long run simulation which was positive and I think we are in a good position going into tomorrow’.  Asked if run time was a concern, he said, ‘It’s borderline for a lot of people and especially when its hotter out.  There are going to be a lot of people driving to a number rather than flat out’.

Another driver using the cooler conditions to check his status over 7-minute was Gruber who holds P5 in the over night seeding behind Senesi.  The European 1:10 Nitro Touring Car Champion explained, ‘we changed the manifold for that one to work on our 7-minute run time but it took a lot of work to get the engine set.  I pitted maybe 5 or 6 times and it was still too rich which that meant the gearbox shifted too late.  In the end it was OK, not perfect but still good.’  With Hong Nor’s owners and engineer arriving trackside in Sydney today, the German is confident ‘all is working well’ admitting ‘we are not faster than Jeff at the moment’ but also highlighting ‘he saved a lot with tyres in the first two rounds so for sure had better tyres for the last one but we are on a good way now and we see tomorrow how everything is.’

Rounding out the 6 in seeding with one run to go, Paolo Morganti is finding himself doing a lot of head scratching in terms of how to make set-up changes to his IGT8 chassis.  Ending the day as he opened it with another fourth fastest time, he described track conditions as ‘Disney on Ice’.  Making a front sway bar change after the first round he said the small change dramatically changed the car for the worse but then making a major change for the last run it made little or no difference.  For tomorrow, he plans to revert to the best of the set-ups he ran yesterday in controlled practice.

Catanzani just pipped by Hamon in first seeding round

Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani looked like giving us a new name at the top of the timing sheets at 1:8 GT World Championship as seeding got underway in Australia but with just seconds to go team-mate Jeff Hamon somehow managed to recover from a problematic start to the run to snatch it from the young Italian.  A run that would see a number of drivers in the top heat experience issues,  Catanzani was the first driver to break into the 54-seconds for his 3-consecutive laps and looking to save tyres was already down off the rostrum just after half way through the 10-minutes run with his time looking strong enough to hold.  Having set the pace yesterday, Hamon was also off the driver stand but for different reasons as he suffered brake problems.  Considering abandoning the run, with just enough time to make an attempt at 3-laps after fixing his breaks the Aussie pulled it off pipping Catanzani by 0.094 of a second. Having finished out yesterday’s controlled practice with some promising runs, Natanaele Senesi carried that form into seeding opening his account with a P3 for the first of the four rounds ahead of Paolo Morganti and Toni Gruber.

Asked about his issues that saw him spend over 3-minutes in the pits once his car had been marshalled, Hamon explained, ‘My brakes were not correct so I fixed the problem but I over fixed it and the brakes locked on’.  Coming off the driver standing and fixing the problem himself, he said, ‘the plan was to do 2-minutes warm-up, 3-laps and come in so when I had the problem I was just going to abandon it but I had just enough time for a go at it and a pretty clear track because a lot of the others had come in already to save tyres.  It paid off’.  With tyres a big talking point yesterday, Hamon said the decision to call an team-managers meeting this morning and agree all racers will get a fifth set of the PMT handout tyres was ‘way better’.  He added, ‘It is good for the event as drivers now need to worry less about tyre management and go after times’.

Sixth fastest in controlled practice, European Championship Top Qualifier Catanzani summed up the first seeding practice with ‘now its good’.  He continued, ‘the car is a little difficult to drive but it fast as well’.  Asked about coming in early, he said this was to save tyres and explaining he plans to do today’s three seeding rounds on the one set of tyres.  Looking to the second run, he said while ‘fast is good’ he will make a small down stop change to his Gimar powered Serpent to try make it ‘a little easier to drive’.

Pleased with his first seeding attempt, drivers’ two best point scores from the four rounds determining the heats for qualifying, Senesi described his Xray as ‘better’ after adjusting the diffs.  Going to a lower oil he said the biggest change was to come from the change of bodyshell he made.  Having switched between the Blitz P5 and P6 yesterday, he ran the TSP Racing Zonda GT today calling it ‘a huge difference’.  He explained, ‘it makes the car more stable in the rear and on the sweeper its more stable in the steering’.  Highlighting the difference in him going from 18.5 to 18.2 lap times, he feels his 3rd for the round could have been better as he had one mistake on his 3-laps.

‘Not bad for an old man’, was how Morganti summed up his P4 time.  The iGT8 owner continued, ‘It was a decent run but I lost a little balance and the car now over rotates.  It was like driving a modified electric, you need to be so precise with the throttle’.  Running new tyres, he said ‘re-run tyres’ after the head cycle fade and he will make a small change for that and to make the car a little easier to drive.

Like Hamon, another driver to have car issues was Gruber.  A loose screw in his steering linkage lost the German a lot of warm-up time which in turn lead to his engine not being set right for the run.  Running rich, this then caused a late shift to second gear but the Hong Nor driver was happy the screw came loose so early when he was only warming up the car saying if it had happened when he was up to speed it could have been a lot worse and his car would have for sure been in the fence.  Despite his engine set-up being off, he said to be only 4/10th off Hamon he is feeling positive for the next one.