Chassis – Kyosho MP10 TKI3
Engine – Alpha Falcon Spec B
Fuel – VP Racing Fuel
Tires – RawSpeed Radar
Radio – Futaba 10PX USLE
Servos – Futaba HPS CB701 (steering) / HPS CT702 (throttle)
Body – Kyosho
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Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro will go for a third consecutive win at the Philippine Masters as the Top Qualifier, his main rival in Manila Burak Kilic unable to force the battle for the overall TQ to go to tomorrow’s final qualifier. Originally two qualifiers were scheduled to make up Friday’s timetable but with a chance of rain effecting the rest of the weekend, race control pushed through with getting a third round in the books. With Ongaro having taken the opening 2 qualifiers, Kilic had to deliver a TQ run having come close in the previous round, but it wasn’t to be. The Mugen Seiki would get caught out on his penultimate lap by light rain that started as the third round concluded. Going off the track, Kilic would retire to the pits as Ongaro took the round ahead of Infinity pairing Kouki Kato and Naoto Matsukura. Behind them, despite a mistake, Ryan Lutz maintained his run of Top 5 times taking his Kyosho to the fourth fastest time ahead of Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik and last year’s podium finisher Atsushi Hara. With the TQ settled the focus of Q4 will be on the battle for second between Asian Buggy Championship debutant Kilic and last year’s season finale winner Kouki.
Securing the TQ a round earlier than he did last year at the Circulo Verde Track, asked about his third TQ run Ongaro replied, ‘It was good until the rain. I feel like the car has no steering compared to before but my dad told me the laps so I knew it was the track conditions.’ The back to back World Champion continued, ‘I saw Burak behind me push and he was trying to stay behind me but I knew I could go from him with pushing so it was good. I think it was the best run of today. Now we see about eBuggy tomorrow and if we can the TQ from Alex (Bernadzik)’. With team-mate Bernadzik having TQ’d the second eBuggy qualifier, Ongaro topping the other two, the Aussie could challenge for pole in the fourth & final qualifier tomorrow morning.
Suffering a mistake on the opening lap of Q1 and then messing up Q2 with another mistake, Kato said, ‘After the first two rounds I just went for a clean run.’ The Japanese Champion added the change in conditions due to the weather also added to how safe he drove the round but in the end it paid dividends. Now with a P2, the ABC Indonesia winner is determined to TQ the final qualifier having opened the weekend so strongly with a seeding run that stuck until the final round when only Ongaro could beat it by 1/10th of a second. He also posted the fastest lap of Q1 after his frustrating lap 1 crash. On his car, Kato said he would wait to see how the track is in the morning before deciding if he would make any set-up changes, feeling the track will be different to the past few dry days.
Clearly pleased with his effort, Matsukura explained, ‘I changed the rear set-up a little and the car was more stable. It still felt a little understeer but overall it was more consistent. Even with the wind and the little bit of rain I felt like I had a little bit more traction’. Having reported understeer in Q2, asked if he had tried to resolve this he said rather than adjust the steering they worked on making the rear even more stable. For Q4 they will try a change in the steering to try get more steering in the front of the car. The multiple onroad World Champion, said the difference between him and Ongaro is pretty significant, ‘Ongaro can get 36 (second laps) easy but for me if its a good lap it’s low 37 so to do well we need to improve our lap times and more steering should help with that.’
Reacting to his third round Lutz said, ‘It was OK. I made a mistake in the back, the first double, I just gassed it too much on the first one and ran into the back wall and tumbled for a bit’. Winner of last season’s New Zealand round of the Asian Buggy Championships, the American continued, ‘I felt I finally started to get a decent pace at the end, I was just slow at the start. So hopefully we can just clean it up and go a little faster tomorrow.’ Asked if he felt he was building up well for the final, he replied, ‘the cars are feeling better yeh, it’s more just my driving and just trying to be smooth.’
Ending the day with his best round, a P5, Bernadzik said what made Q3 better was he ‘kept it on all four wheels basically’. With an ‘average Q1 and average Q2’, the 22-year ABC Australia race winner said, ‘the car is really good. I went out on a fresh set of tyres there and it started off a little bit nervous but once they broke in I got really comfortable and started to make up some positions.’ Asked about tomorrow, the Brisbane driver said, ‘hopefully we can try grab a Top 3 and hopefully that can get me 4th or 5th on the grid and we’ll see how it goes from there.’ Having impressed with his pace in qualifying here last year but suffered a flame out in the final, he said his car is working well and it’s just a matter of stringing everything together adding ‘it was all me in those first two, just silly errors pushing too hard. I’ll back it off about 5% and just keep it nice and consistent.’
Chassis – Team Associated RC8 B4
Engine – O.S. Speed B2105 ONG V3 WC Edition
Fuel – Energy
Tires – Matrix Blackhole (Brand new Nebula on buggy only for photos)
Radio – Sanwa Exzes ZZ III
Servos – Sanwa PGS-XR II (steering) / PGS-XB II (throttle)
Body – Xtreme Aria
Notes – Davide is running all of his own ONG brand option parts on his buggy including Shock caps, shock standoffs and shock pins,
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While a repeat of the opening qualifier result, Q2 at the Philippine Masters saw Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic get a lot closer to Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro. With a 1-second buffer over the Manila race first timer in Q1, the defending back to back winner of Asia’s biggest annual 1:8 Offroad race had just 4/10ths in hand over Kilic in the second round, the later saying afterwards traffic had cost him a the chance of the TQ. Summing up his run Ongaro reported the wind was causing him some issues but added ‘wind is part of the game and you can do nothing. For the rest (of the run) it was good’. On his performance Kilic said, ‘It was really good but just held me up from making the TQ. I mean it was the same for Davide he also had many traffic but we made a good race’. While the original schedule for Friday’s action was just two qualifiers, the event famous driver’s banquet taking place this evening in the capital city, the threat of rain tomorrow means drivers will go at it one more time today with a third round of qualifying. While up front things looked, again the Top 2 the only drivers to cover 9-laps, the second round produced some notable improvements from Naoto Matsukra and Pekko Iivonan who posted the 3rd and 4th fastest times ahead of Ryan Lutz. Having had a Top 3 in Q1, Sworkz diver Mattia Polito could only manage P7, the Italian reporting he had a complete lack of traction this time round.
Asked about his new improved form this round Matsukura said, ‘We are making progress. We improved both the car and the driver.’ The Infinity driver continued, ‘It was a good run with almost no mistakes. We changed the downstops, so I am almost the same set-up as Kouki (Kato) and the car was more stable, it has a little more understeer now, but overall better.’ He would also change tyres for the run going for an almost new set of Hotrace Sahara tyres feeling the track today is a little more loose. With his car feeling it had more understeer he said the plan is to make a change to try and rectify this.
Explaining his P4 run Iivonan said, ‘I went with more toe in in the rear and the car was actually better, easier to drive’. P8 in Q1, he explained that run included a small mistake which dropped him down the order, for Q3 he said he will change some small things to try to make the car better adding ‘the last one was definitely a good run and has given me confidence in the car and slightly more rear grip off power would be good.’ The Finnish Mayako driver’s first time attending the Philippine Masters, the 22-year-old said, ‘I like the track, the layout is super nice and flowing but the grip is high’.
Backing up his P4 in Q1 with a P5, Lutz described the run with, ‘It was decent.’ The Kyosho driver continued, ‘I just didn’t quite have the steering I needed so my changes took away a little too much steering I think. A little easier to drive but not as fast as I wanted.’ I’ll dial in a touch more steering and see how it goes.
With qualifying getting underway at the Philippine Masters in Manila this morning, it was Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro who topped the first of the 4 scheduled qualifiers from Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic. Having topped yesterday’s seeding from Infinity’s Kouki Kato, Ongaro completed 9-laps of the Circulo Verde Track over the 5-minute qualifier with Kilic, the only other drive to make 9-laps, just 1-second off. It was to be a frustrating start to qualifying for Kato as he crashed on his opening lap and needed to be marshal. Losing 4-seconds, the fired up Japanese driver would go on to set the fastest lap by an impressive margin as he recovered to salvage a P5. Making it an all European based Top 3, Italy’s Mattia Polito managed to go ahead of Kyosho’s Ryan Lutz on the final lap. Seeded No.8, the American lost 3/10ths of a second to the Sworkz driver on their 8th lap giving Polito 3rd for the round by just 0.048. Behind them reigning Asian Buggy Championships Champion Christian Wolhuter completed the Top 6, this weekend’s second round of the Cayote backed championship the Australian Sworkz driver’s first outing of the season.
Having opened the day first with a TQ run in eBuggy, on his nitro heat Ongaro said, ‘It was a safe run and I just tried not to crash. We used new tyres which for me was a bit to edgy so I tried to drive smooth and save the car in some spots which is still not the best but I think for the second round the tyres will be better.’ With 14-car heats, the World Champion said he had to deal with some traffic but he played patient adding ‘driving super fast here is not easy with a lot of drivers on the track, anyway it is what it is for everyone so we have to take what it is. For Q2 we just try to repeat.’
‘I’m ok with that, I just need more steering but the car is good,’ that’s how Kilic summed up the first qualifier. The Turkish driver continued, ‘I think I will maybe change to a softer compound (tyre) for the steering. I just need a little more steering on the tighter corners but overall the car was good and my driving was really good. Just 1-second behind Davide is good.’ Overall a clean run, with ‘just a few small bobbles’, he said while he finds the track is changing ever run, softer tyres should put him in an even better position to challenge Ongaro in the second of today’s qualifier.
Polito described his performance as ‘really, really good’ but added they need to set the engine better for the next one as he felt it was running a little too rich. A clean run and feeling the track had a little more grip, he said while he wanted to push more he played it safe so as to have a good round to his credit. Given that approached paid dividends, he will try to repeat it again in Q2.
Describing his Q1 effort as ‘solid’, Lutz, who took a P3 in Q1 of eBuggy, added, ‘The cars are feeling much better than yesterday and the changes that I have made have been good so now I hope I can make myself be more consistent.’ On his driving, this the popular US driver’s second trip to the Philippine Masters, he said, ‘It’s just my inputs, I am just too erratic at times. I pull too much trigger, not enough trigger, that’s my biggest issue right now. The cars are a lot better, the tyres have been great.’ Asked what he felt was the biggest improvement to the buggy over yesterday he replied, ‘small progressions and I think taking out some bump steer in that last one, it maybe made the steering a little more consistent for me.’
Asked about his first lap mistake, Kato said, ‘I made a crash in the middle section and lost a lot of time. I just touched the pipe and needed to be marshalled.’ The 18-year old continued, ‘the car was good and I could still set the fastest lap so the speed is there. I just need to make a clean run.’
Chassis – Infinity IFB8
Engine – O.S. Speed B2105
Fuel – Merlin
Tires – HotRace Sahara
Radio – Sanwa M17S
Servos – Sanwa PGS-XB II
Body – Infinity
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