Chassis – Team Associated RC8 B4
Engine – O.S. Speed B2105 ONG V3 WC Edition
Fuel – Energy
Tires – Matrix
Radio/Servos – Sanwa Exzes ZZ / Sanwa PGS-XR II
Body – Xtreme Aria
Notes – Davide is running all of his own ONG brand option parts on his buggy.
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World Champion Davide Ongaro finally delivered a TQ run at the SIGP when the Team Associated driver topped the final qualifier but it is fellow Italian Mattia Polito who is the Top Qualifier in China. Going into the last round it was only Q2 winner David Ronnefalk who could deny Sworkz’s Polito the overall TQ but the Xray driver never looked a threat in Q4 as Ongaro went about laying down the fastest qualifying run of the event. 2.8-seconds behind, Polito also posted his quickest time but it was his TQ runs from Q1 & 3 that booked the 21-year-old’s direct spot into the 45-minute final here in Xiamen. With his Q4 time giving him the tie break for second overall in the final qualifying order, Ongaro and 3rd place qualifier Ronnefalk will led away each of the 25-minute Semi Finals. Backing up his Q3 Top 3 with another third fastest time in the last round, Coelho ends up fourth meaning the 3-time Touring Car World Champion joins Ongaro in the second of the scheduled Semis.
Reacting to securing the overall TQ, this his first time to the former 1:10 Offroad World Championship host track, Polito said, ‘I am really happy.’ Asked about the final qualifier he explained, ‘I tried different tyres, a different compound which was a little harder and it was fast for last 3-laps’, something that was backed by his last lap being the fastest of all four rounds of qualifying. He added while, ‘they took time to come in at the start, for a long run I think this is a good choice.’ While a 10-minute ‘Top Qualifier Practice’ session tomorrow afternoon will be an opportunity to check if any final adjustments are needed for the track conditions, he said the plan for now is to leave his car unchanged for tomorrow and just put on fresh tyres.’ Asked about tyre wear he said as it is low ‘one set for the final will be ok’ and with fuel consumption ‘normal’ there should be no concerns there either.
Upbeat about his closing qualifying performance, Ongaro said, ‘Q4 was good, we made a few changes on the car for the balance and it was better, it was easier to drive. We did the TQ in the last round in both eBuggy and Nitro so I am overall TQ in eBuggy and P2 in Nitro. I don’t care about the TQ in nitro, we are in the Semi which is OK, but for sure the feeling and the pace was way better at the end so finally we arrive to a compromise.’ Happy tyre wear and runtime won’t be an issue in the finals, Ongaro added, ‘I think consistency is the key for the main because the track will be even worse than today.’ Asked if he felt he was in a good place for the finals he replied, ‘Yes, maybe we arrived a little bit late but we arrived.’
Summing up his 3rd overall at the end of qualifying, Ronnefalk said, ‘In the last two rounds I have been lacking grip for some reason so I need to figure our why for tomorrow. I need to check the diffs and that they are OK or maybe it was just a tyre choice. I don’t know if Bruno stayed with the (Hotrace) Bangkok. I tried the Amazzonia and on the polished parts of the track it was just spinning on me so I was forcing too much and then I ended up making mistakes but I was definitely missing to the others this time around so I need to go back to the Bangkoks that we know work before.’ On tyre wear he said, ‘we will be low by the end of the main but tyre wear is not an issue.’ Regarding runtime here he said he is ‘OK’ adding, ‘I saw that a couple of guys had issues early on in qualifying and I made some adjustments to my clutch setting and went to another venturi and then it better after that. The last few rounds I didn’t see guys having issues so I think we are all pretty similar on runtime.’ On loosing out on tie break to Ongaro for the eBuggy TQ, he said, ‘It was very close between myself, Bruno, and Davide, but I had traffic on the last lap which cost me many seconds so then my chances were gone. I was wishing for Bruno to take the TQ but unfortunately he had a mistake two corners before the loop so in the end Davide got it and had a better time so he is overall TQ in eBuggy’.
Asked how he felt Q4 had went, Coelho said, ‘It was very good until the last lap basically, on the last lap I hit something on the jump that my car jumped completely impossible to recover and I lost the TQ there but the cars are working pretty good and I am feeling, I will not say confident, but there are no excuses for tomorrow to not have a good result.’ Asked about tomorrow’s finals, the Portuguese ace said, ‘the finals will be a bit of a lottery because you can see nobody is really consistent. Some guys are very good in one run, some guys are very good in another run and the main problem is nobody can understand why. Some runs just go very well, I think because of the feeling we have in the track in that moment that make us much faster but as I say both cars are working pretty good, I just need to keep it on the wheels.’
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Chassis – Mayako MX8-25 ‘Limited Edition’
Engine – O.S.
Fuel – Nitrolux
Tires – TZO 402
Radio/Servos – Sanwa M17 / Savox SB3292SG
Body – Mayako 2.0
Notes – JQ is running the upcoming 2025 edition of Mayako’s buggy, the kit set for release in January. He is specifically running the Limited Edition kit which is shipped with all their option parts included. While sponsored by Ultimate Racing for his engines, he is having to run a borrowed O.S. here at the SIGP. Explaining in his own words why, ‘I grabbed the wrong engine box by mistake, and brought an old practice engine, so I borrowed an O.S. See I told you I’m old and don’t race anymore.’
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Mattia Polito was back at top of the time sheets at the SIGP, the Sworkz driver setting the pace in the 3rd & penultimate round of qualifying in Xiamen ahead of fellow countryman Davide Ongaro. After TQ’ing the opening round, a bad set-up would lead to two crashes in the second round leaving the Italian with a P3 as David Ronnefalk TQ’d from Ongaro. A crash on the first lap was the start of a rough Q3 for Ronnefalk, his Xray eventually ending up 5th fastest. Out front, Polito just missed out on doubling up on being the only driver to run 13-laps of the challenging track, his only blotch in Q3 an off track excursion that cost him less than 2-seconds. In the end he would have 2.7-seconds on Ongaro with Bruno Coelho enjoying his cleanest run yet to record his first Top 3 time. Making his SIGP debut along with Ongaro and Polito, 18-year-old Gabriel Astorino had a strong run to the fourth fastest time 9-seconds off the TQ pace.
‘It was good and clean expect for one mistake’, was Polito’s reaction to Q3, him lucky that he didn’t need to be marshalled as he was able to drive his own way back onto the track. With his car back working after they raise the rear end back up again, the 21-year-old added, ‘I want to try different shocks. Before I used 6-holes but for the last round I will try 8-holes. The rest I leave the same.’
Summing up his performance Ongaro said, ‘It was close with Mattia but then I had a stupid crash after the straight, so I lost about 3, 4 seconds, I was there with him anyway it was better definitely.’ Making diff oil changes after Q2 ask how these were, the World Champion said, ‘It was better for me. The car is more consistent and for the bumps I think it is better.’ Looking Q4, the 23-year-old, ‘on the car I will make no change but we will try something different on the tyres.’
Looking a bit more upbeat that he was after Q2, Coelho said, ‘It was better than the one before. I think I recovered like 15-seconds so its a big improvement, it is also easy to make 15-seconds less. Still I did one big bobble which cost me the TQ, because I was super fast. The progress is happening so lets try to keep that moving.’ On his car and any set-up changes he planned for the fourth & final qualifier, the former 1:10 Offroad World Champion said, ‘now we are just working on small changes.’
‘I’m happy because I had a good feeling with the car now’ was how Astorino summed his run to the fourth fastest time. The Italian WIRC said a shock change after Q2 had left him with a buggy that ‘was much better on the jumps and the slow corners.’ For the final qualifier, he is considering a further shock change as well as his diffs as he feels he is going in a good direction with the changes made earlier. Suffering one mistake in the run when he took a jump wrong, he said it didn’t cost him much time or result in him needing to be marshalled.
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Chassis – Xray XB8’24
Engine – FX K303
Fuel – Energy
Tires – Hotrace Bangkok
Radio/Servo – FlySky Noble Pro+ / Hitec HSB9381
Body – Xray
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Xray’s David Ronnefalk has kicked off Day 2 of qualifying at the SIGP in China by taking the second round of Nitro Buggy. A much cooler morning in Xiamen, a clean run would see the Swede top the times by 1.3-seconds from a much improved Davide Ongaro while Q1 pace setter Matti Polito completed the Top 3, both Italians having mistakes. While having the fastest buggy on the track in Q2, it was another error filed run from Bruno Coelho, three costly mistakes over the 7-minutes leaving him with a P4. Backing up his Top 5 in yesterday’s opening qualifier, Joseph Quagraine again took his Mayako to the 5th fastest time ahead of the WIRC of Gabriel Astorino.
‘I just kept it on the wheels and had a good couple of opening laps’, was how Ronnefalk summed up his TQ performance. The 2016 World Champion continued, ‘Dad was informing what the others were doing. I got told Ongaro crashed, and next to me was Bruno on the driver’s stand and I heard he crashed by his reaction. Dad told me I had a 7-second lead or something so I stepped it down from that point. Because of his crash Ongaro was pushing a lot so he closed in for a couple of laps in the middle of the run. I had one lap where I almost threw it away twice but managed to keep it on the wheels but lost about 3-seconds so Ongaro got close. I had to push on the last lap to get the TQ. You can make the fast laps, it not an issue on this track but its going to bit you if you keep doing them all the time.’ Asked about track conditions today he said, ‘It was weird now cause eBuggy in the morning felt really grippy compared to yesterday and I had good grip so I kept the same tyres for nitro now and I felt already I had a lot less grip so its changing a lot. In terms of the bumpyness I don’t think it gets more, it was broken from the start, the surface is pretty consistent, what is changing is the grip level but it is nothing crazy but I probably would have went for a different compound for nitro if I knew the change would be so big.’
Having TQ’d the second round of eBuggy, asked about his nitro run, Ongaro replied with, ‘Better, better than yesterday and finally we found some pace in both cars. We continue working but I am happy and I also slept well last night which helps.’ Asked what details he was now focusing on with his car, Adrien Bertin wrenching on his buggies this weekend, he said, ‘we are working on diff oil mainly and tyres. We already found the right compound but the thread we are still trying options. We are working with Nebula and Neutron. We don’t have a lot of them so we have to switch them but both are working the same and in eBuggy I also tried the Blackhole because they put molasses on track and they worked good. We have three threads that are working.’
The star of yesterday’s action, taking the opening TQ with a clean run, Polito would suffer two mistake this time round. Asked about his Q2 performance, the Sworkz driver said, ‘I made two mistakes because the car was too low in the rear.’ With a faster lap time than both World Champion drivers ahead of him, the 21-year-old Top Seed wasn’t phased by being off the top spot on the time sheets for the first time since the event officially got underway and said he would just correct the rear ride height for Q3 and ‘all is OK’.
‘It was a tough morning but still a lot to go’ was Coelho’s reaction after Q2. He added, ‘it’s for sure not the best conditions for me as an onroad/offroad driver. I would prefer for sure the new tracks without any bumps and this is extremely bumpy so I am suffering a lot with my own skills basically.’ Fresh from winning the FEMCA Electric Touring Car title last weekend at the GDC indoor carpet track in Foshan, looking to take a positive from Q2 he said, ‘It is always nice to learn and experience different conditions, I think I never had such rough conditions but I have to learn.’ Asked about his buggy, he replied, ‘In both categories I think I was if not the fastest one of the the fastest around the track, I just need to be able to be more consistent for the whole run without so many mistakes. Probably I need to dial it back a bit.’
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