Coelho takes early overall TQ in Japan

It is turning out to be a World Championships at which the rookies are making their mark with Spencer Rivkin winning the 2WD World title earlier in the week and now Bruno Coelho securing the overall TQ in 4WD on his 1:10 Offroad Worlds debut.  Unlike 2WD qualifying when the Top Qualifier was decided in the fifth & final round on the morning of the finals, Coelho got the job done early in a dramatic fourth qualifier which brings Day 2 of the 4WD action to a close.  Running at the top of the timing monitors 3-seconds clear of his rivals, the Xray driver would find himself being instructed by referee Dallas Mathiesen to open to allow 2nd placed Naoto Matsukura through.  Having passed Matsukura following a mistake by the Japanese driver, Coelho eventually heeded the strange instruction, Matsukura would try to close the gap but with time running out a stripped spur gear in the last sequence of corners before the finishing straight denied a Q5 showdown.  Coasting his Kyosho across the loop, Matsuskura with still get second behind Coelho with Michal Orlowski completing the Top 3.  Two drivers that went head to head at last year’s Touring Car World Championship, Matsukura coming out on top, a good Q5 for the Japanese star would set the stage for a re-match.

Exchanging words with Mathiesen after the qualifier, Coelho said their was ‘no logic’ in the call made.  Giving his view of things the 22-year-old said ‘Naoto made a mistake which let me by. After this I changed completely my driving so as to control my TQ pace instead of pushing like I did when I was behind Naoto.  I don’t understand the logic of asking the driver who is first to open’.  He continued ‘I won’t say I was frustrated but more disappointed and it caused me to make two mistakes’.  With his team-mate Martin Bayer, who at this years 1:8 Offroad European Championships lost his place in the Main final due to controversial decision by Mathiesen, telling him to ‘forget the negative’ Coelho said ‘Of course I’m super happy to TQ not just for me but the whole team’.  A driver who has just completed his first full year as a professional driver since bursting onto the scene at the Touring Car Worlds in Florida and then being signed up full time by Xray, he continued, ‘everyone has worked really hard, particularly in the 2-weeks before the race.  I only did 10% of the work or less Martin (Bayer) did most of it’.  Asked about the finals, the hero of Portugal said ‘having 9 guys behind me is completely different to doing your own thing in qualifying.  It will be much more pressure, its going to be like being hunted’.  Expecting overtaking to be ‘almost impossible’ due to the high traction of the astro turf with everyone running the same line he said while you never know the key was going to be to put in clean mistake free races.

Offering his congratulations to Coelho, Matsukura said he is looking forward to racing his touring car rival.  With a P8 for Q2, he said he needs a 2nd or better in the morning’s final qualifier to ensure he starts 2nd joking ‘last time the TQ won but this time it will be the reverse’.  Setting the fastest lap of Q4, he described his Lazer ZX6 as ‘super nice to drive’ highlighting how he was able to pull away from Coelho before the spur gear let go.

After making ‘lots of mistakes’ in Q3 as a result of being ‘not fully concentrated’, Orlowski said he went into Q4 aiming for a safe run.  Wanting to ensure he didn’t have to go into Q5 looking for a result to make the A-Main, the European Champion said the safe approach worked ‘really good’.  Looking on target to start 3rd, the 14-year-old said this position was better than ‘having Matsukura behind you on his own track’.  He added with the Warm-up Race winner also slightly faster than Coelho he would just try to keep pace and wait to see what happens.

2WD Top Qualifier Jared Tebo would achieve the best result of the day for the Americans taking his Kyosho to fourth in the penultimate qualifier.  Saying ‘that was good’, the former 4WD Champion said ‘my car has been decent all day but a little difficult and for that one I made it a little easier to drive which let me get a clean run’ adding ‘I’ve been on the pace every run but just crashed’.  With only a 16, a 13 and a 17 from the opening three qualifiers, the American who sits 12th overnight said ‘I need to do it again tomorrow’ implying a clean run is essential to him having any chance of making the A-Main.

Sitting fourth overnight, HB’s David Ronnefalk would only get 17th for the round having posted Top 4 times in his previous qualifiers.  The Swede said he was ‘trying to find the limit’ and ‘drove harder’ but this approach ended up being ‘slower and more risky’.  Happy that his D413 has good pace he said ‘the key is to keep it smooth’ and he will revert to how he ran in Q3 when he got a P3 just a second of the TQ pace.

View the complete overall qualifying standings after Rd4 here (PDF).

View our full event image gallery here.

Video – 4wd Qualifying Rd4

Matsukura comes good in Q3

Naoto Matsukura has finally come good at the World Championships in Japan, with the pre-event favourite TQ’ing the third round of qualifying from Q1 & 2 pace setter Bruno Coelho.  After a frustrating 2WD event, in which he finished 20th overall, the Kyosho driver had a close battle with Coelho to take the Q3 by 0.266 of a second with David Ronnefalk again completing the Top 3.  Overall it was a better performance from the host nation’s star drivers with qualifying top seed Yusuke Sugiura also putting in his best performance to take a fourth for the round.

Having lost steering in Q1, the speedo traced as the cause of the problem, and then struggled with the settings of a new speedo fitted his Lazer ZX6, Matsukura said Q3 was ‘perfect’.  8th fastest in Q2, the Warm-up Race winner and 2013 Vice-Champion said that his run was hampered by the speedo having a different feeling leading to early mistakes.  Having too much punch, with that rectified for Q3 the 22-year-old said he had a good feeling with the car which he said also had ‘good speed’.  A major confidence boost for the 4-time Onroad World Champion, he said the focus is to ‘keep it going now’.

No stranger to battling with Matsukura, finishing a very close second to the then Yokomo driver at the Touring Car World Championships in Florida, Coelho would lose out on a potential overall TQ due to a mistake.  Asked about the roll the electric offroad novice said ‘I am all the time learning’.  Over jumping at the table top he would land wide and trying to get back onto his line turned too early causing his XB4 to traction roll.  Despite the ‘rookie mistake’, he said it was still a good qualifier and again he was full of praise for his car which again would set the fastest lap for the round.

Describing his third qualifying run as ‘even better’, Ronnefalk is clearly growing in confidence with his HB car.  Putting more weight in his D413 this ‘found steering’ with the Swede able to make a ‘huge improvement’ in pace.  Knocking 2/10ths of a second off his lap times he feels he can now challenge for a TQ run.  Making one error when he overshot the roller and flat landed it he said his ‘times are now pretty close to Bruno and Naoto’s highlighted by the fact that they were the only 3-drivers to run an 18-lap qualifier.

Sugiura said Q3 was better but admitted it was a nervous 5-minutes.  Posting a 10th and 11th for the opening two qualifiers, the Warm-up Race podium finisher said he knew he needed a good result and the pressure of that got to him a bit.  With the P4 lifting the pressure a little he is targeting a repeat run in the day’s closing qualifier.

View the complete overall qualifying standings after Rd3 here (PDF).

View our full event image gallery here.

Video – 4wd Qualifying Rd3

Coelho again in Q2

Bruno Coelho has backed up his impressive Q1 topping performance with another TQ run in the second round of qualifying at the IFMAR World Championships at the Yatabe Arena.  Despite a less perfect run, the Xray driver making one mistake when he rolled his XB4 in front of the drivers stand losing over 3-seconds, Coelho would still top the times. With the margin this time only half a second rather than the massive 5-seconds he had in Q1 second would be Michal Orlowski with David Ronnefalk third a further 1.5-seconds adrift.  It would turn out being an all European Top 6  with Tom Cockerill fourth followed by former European Champions Martin Bayer and Lee Martin with American Ryan Maifield posting a P7 run.

‘Not perfect but still really really good’ that was the reaction of the 1:10 Offroad World Championship debutant Coelho.  Having only made his international event debut last month at the Euro Offroad Series in Germany, the star of onroad racing said while they knew from testing at the Hudy Racing Arena prior to travelling to Japan that the new XB4 would be good he ‘didn’t expect as much from the car’.  Posting the fastest lap of qualifying so far with a 17.124, Orlowski and Ronnefalk’s best being 17.4 laps, he said he just needs to drive the car.  Asked about his error which saw his car tumble across lanes and require marshalling, he replied ‘It was just a bad landing, I think it landed on its back wheel’.  For Q3, when he could potentially claim the overall TQ, he said the plan was to go out and try to repeat what he’s done so far only less the Q2 mistake.

Another driver to make a mistake in front of the driver stand, Orlowski said other than the single mistake it was a ‘very good run’.  Explaining his mistake the Schumacher driver said ‘I jumped too far and then when I turned in it traction rolled’ adding that he felt grip was higher in Q2. Surviving a number of moments when his CAT K2 got up on two wheels, the reigning European Champion and EOS front runner said he is ‘too slow to catch Bruno’ and for Q3 he will ‘try to change something in the car to get it to go faster’.

‘No stupid nerves that time’ was the reaction of a much more relaxed looking Ronnefalk.  Having struggled to hit his lines in Q1, he said in the warm-up he knew changes to his HB meant he had a much better car leaving him relaxed for the qualifier.  Changing the steering geometry and shock set-up,  he said his D413 was way better.  Rolling over once which cost him ‘about a second’, for Q3 he will leave the car unchanged with tyres his main focus, the Swede unsure whether to continue on the same set of Schumacher controlled tyre which have already done Q1 & 2, or fit new ones.

Cockerill, whose previous best at a Worlds was 20th place in Chico, said he ‘over the moon’ with his P4.  A surprise second in the first qualifier, the Yokomo driver said he just did the same thing as Q1 and kept it clean.  Describing his YZ-4 as a ‘little bit edgy’, he said he wants to go for thicker sway bars but doesn’t want to change it considering the results he is getting out of it as is.  Saying he is ‘not the fastest in his heat’, the British driver running in the second fastest group, he said ‘everyone else is crashing’.

Having dropped from running a TQ pace in Q1 to finishing up 31st after a series of driver errors, Bayer said he just went for a ‘super safe run’.  The lead Xray driver said ‘I know the car has the pace’ but that time I needed to get good points so went safe’.  With Jared Tebo and Naoto Matsukura running behind him, he said it wasn’t easy but he was happy to get a P5.  For Q3 he will again take the ‘safe approach’.

Completing the Top 6, Lee Martin was annoyed that he again made an error at the same spot as he did in Q1.  The Euro Offroad Series Champion, who kicked off his title defence recently with a win in Germany, said his ‘pace is ok’ but he is ‘not driving amazing’ with the mistake costing him 3-seconds.  On the blind approach to the table top he said he was told his Yokomo caught the dots sending it onto the jump upside down.  Having traction rolled coming off the table top in Q1, he said hopefully its third time lucky in the next one and I don’t crash there.

Asked how his qualifying was going, Maifield replied, ‘better than some’.  Having one mistake in Q2, the TLR driver said his TLR22-4 is ‘really consistent and easy to drive’.  While admitting to not being able to better 17.4 lap times, the American said the cars got Top 5 performance but he needs to put together a clean full run.  Behind Maifield, Matsukura would set the 8th fastest time with Kaito Akimoto and Kohta Akimoto rounding off the Top 10.

View the complete overall qualifying standings after Rd2 here (PDF).

View our full event image gallery here.

Video – 4wd Qualifying Rd2