Coelho TQs opening qualifier

Bruno Coelho has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the 1:10 4WD Offroad World Championships in Japan.  Having ended yesterday’s seeding practice second fastest, the Xray driver would go on top the first of the five qualifiers by a substantial margin of almost 5-seconds from Yokomo driver Tom Cockerill.  The start of qualifying would be very much a European affair with Michal Orlowski and David Ronnefalk next up, 2nd to 4th covered by just 0.024 of a second.  With top seed Yusuke Sugiura suffering ‘too many mistakes’, the Kyosho driver would end up tenth while reigning champion Steven Hartson would continue to struggling posting only the 24th fastest time.  One of the pre-event favourites, Naoto Matsukura was in contention for the TQ until his Kyosho steering locked left as a result of an electrics issue. The powerhouse nation of offroad, the best American for Q1 would be Carson Wernimont in 5th.

‘No mistakes, the run was perfect’, was how Coelho summed up Q1.  Racing in only his second ever major 1:10 Offroad event, the 22-year-old said, ‘I was just driving safely looking to get a Top 10 for the round’.  Describing his XB4 as ‘really amazing’, the European Nitro Touring Car Champion said after at the start he did for a moment have concerns something was wrong.  Running on used tyres, the Portuguese star said the rear of the car was loose and on each of the opening two laps he had to save the buggy from crashing.  Thinking ‘whats happened’ he said from the 3rd lap on it was perfect allowing him to run clean to the end of the 5-minutes.  Looking to Q2, he said he planned to leave the car as is and ‘try to repeat again’ his run.  Xray team-mate Martin was laying down the early TQ pace but after a mistake the Czech driver struggled to regain his rhythm leading to more costly errors that left him 31st.

‘Pretty epic’ was Cockerill’s reaction to his surprise pace. The British driver said ‘I just cruised around with no mistakes’ admitting to losing a few 1/10th as nerves kicked in over the closing laps. Opting for used tyres to give him an easier car with which to go for a banker, the former Schumacher designer said his Yokomo team was still ‘lacking a touch of pace’ and aiming for another banker in Q2 he expects others to feature more strongly as they get more consistent over the 5-minutes.

European Champion Orlowski said he went for a safe run but still made mistakes and also having an issue with traffic felt combined they cost him around 4-seconds.  Having found his car twitchy in seeding practice yesterday, the 14-year-old said after trying a shorter wheelbase in the morning’s practice run they went back and the car was now working really good. Happy with the result,  saying a Top 3 was his goal, the Schumacher driver said his CAT K2 was good and he will just fit new rear tyres or Q2.

Describing his fourth as ‘decent’, HB’s David Ronnefalk added ‘I wont say it was super fast but it was clean at least’.  With his Orion powered D413 ‘really good’, the Swede said he got ‘super nervous’ starting out but stayed that way throughout the 5-minute causing him to not once hit his lines but luckily he didn’t crash.  Feeling the ‘pace is there’, he said ‘I just need to relax, hit my lines and I should go faster’.  Team-mate Ty Tessmann would take his D814 to the 7th fastest ahead of TLR’s Ryan Maifield.

Saying ‘we’ve come a long way from yesterday to today’, Wernimont felt it was a ‘pretty good’ start to qualifying.  Suffering one crash which required the new Yokomo signing’s YZ-4 to be marshalled, he said the rest of the run was ‘pretty safe’.  Planning some small set-up tweaks for Q2, he said the main aim is just to keep his driving clean.

Behind Wernimont, former 2WD World Champion Hayato Matsuzaki was pleasantly surprised to complete the Top 6.  The Yokomo driver said ‘it went better than I thought’ adding like Wernimont they have ‘improved a lot’ the YZ-4.  Aiming to keep his car the same, he said having crashed twice in Q1 he would try to improve his driving. Yokomo lead driver Lee Martin would end the round 11th.

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Video – 4wd Qualifying Rd1

Sugiura is top seed at WC

Yusuke Sugiura is the top seed for qualifying at the 1:10 4WD Offroad World Championships in Japan.  The Kyosho driver set a new fastest 3-consecutive laps time in the second of the controlled practices to secure the No.1 in the top heat for qualifying tomorrow at the Yatabe Arena.  Behind the Japanese driver European drivers Bruno Coelho and Michal Orlowski would also improve on their CP1 times to end 4WD Day 1 2nd and 3rd fastest respectively.  Fastest in the first round, Jared Tebo failed to improve second time of asking and will carry the No.4 for qualifying followed by Martin Bayer and Ryan Cavalieri.

Declaring himself ‘happy’ to end the day fastest, Sugiura said he ‘still made mistakes’ adding he has ‘got to be much better for qualifying tomorrow’.  Describing his Muchmore powered Lazer ZX6 as ‘very fast’, the 19-year-old former Japanese National Champion and Warm-up podium finisher said it is ‘completely down to the driver now’.  Expecting the track to change over four rounds of qualifying on tomorrow’s schedule, the fifth & final round running Saturday morning, he said he prefers the lower grip of the morning but said his car is good in both conditions.

Making his 1:10 Offroad Worlds debut, Coelho said he didn’t just focus on 3-laps but his 5-minutes pace in the last practice.  Making two mistakes as he ‘over pushed’ he said ‘otherwise (he) was very happy with the consistency of (his) lap times’.  Running new tyres on his LRP powered XB4 for CP2, the better known onroad star said his buggy worked really good which surprised him as he didn’t expect this on the fresh tyres.  Pleased to get in he top group for qualifying he thinks this should be good but admitted ‘3-laps means nothing’ and its going to be ‘super difficult’ to stay there over 5-minutes’.  Bayer would suffer a motor issue in the final practice, but the Czech driver who was second fastest in CP1 is confident that with a new motor fitted he has a good car for qualifying.

Ending up only 0.065 of a second off Sugiura, Orlowski was pleased with the result but said it didn’t come easy.  Having struggled with a twitchy car in CP1, ending up 7th, he had put this down to his Schumacher being on new tyres.  Running them again in CP2, he said the car was no better and he had to reduce the steering EPA in the warm-up.  Taking the approach to drive smoother he said that worked out good but at the same time he got unlucky as on one of his counting three laps he had to avoid a crashed car costing him a few tenths.  Planning to change his wheelbase for the practice run that opens tomorrow’s qualifying day he said hopefully that settles his buggy, adding a good & long night of sleep should also help with the 14-year-old feeling ‘super tired’.

Asked if he had sorted his ongoing brake issues Tebo replied ‘not yet’ adding ‘we’ll get it figured out for tomorrow’.  The Kyosho driver said ‘the car is really good so we’ll be all good’.  Kyosho team-mate and a driver many expected would have a home advantage on the first Worlds to be run on astro turf, Touring Car World Champion Naoto Matsukura would fail to better his CP1 time scraping into the top heat along with 1:8 World Champion Ty Tessmann who posted his first Top 10 time in the final practice.

Another driver to count his opening time, Ryan Cavalieri completed the Top 6.  The Associated driver said a small adjustment to the breakthrough set-up he used in CP1 had made his Orion powered B44.3 ‘too conservative to drive and he will go back’ for tomorrow. Feeling he is in the mix over 5-minutes he said ‘its going to be interesting for sure but we should there’.  After the high of being crowned 2WD World Champion on Tuesday, Spencer Rivkin suffered a challenging first day of 4WD.  The 16-year-old could only manage 37th, a time set in CP1 when he broke with 2-minutes remaining, and put the poor performance down to just not having found a set-up yet.  Getting closer to Cavalieri’s setting he said ‘we’ll figure it out’ but lining up in the fourth fastest heat traffic could prove an issue in qualifying. Reigning champion Steven Hartson didn’t fare much better ending the up 28th.

For home manufacturer and Yatabe Arena owners Yokomo, Lee Martin would finish the seeding 7th ahead of top HB driver and fellow European David Ronnefalk.  The Euro Offroad Series Champion said his last run was ‘not too bad’ and he was on a 5-minute run as ‘3-laps count for nothing’.  Feeling he ‘should be OK’ in terms of pace his plan is to ‘try and keep it on its wheels’.  The British driver however expects ‘a bit of carnage’, continuing ‘its so fast there are going to be crashes and in 4WD crashes are big’ plus there are a few mad men in there too’ not being specific about which drivers he was referring to.  Just missing out on a Top 10 time, Ryan Maifield was best TLR driver ending up 11th.

View the complete ranking list after 2 rounds of controlled practice here (PDF).

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Video – 4wd Controlled Practice Rd2 Top 3