Balestri is World Champs Top Qualifier

Dario Balestri is the Top Qualifier of the seventh running of the Nitro Touring Car World Championships.  The Capricorn driver claimed his first World Championship pole position with a third TQ run in the penultimate round of qualifying at Miniautodromo Internazionale M.Rosati.  After a tough start to Day 2 of qualifying in Gubbio, Balestri took control for the second half of the day as he topped the rescheduled Q2 concluding heat backing that up shortly afterwards with another perfect performance to put the overall TQ beyond the reach of his rivals.  Despite conditions being cooler for Q5, which was run later in the day due to the rescheduling of the timetable following yesterday’s rain, the Italian was able to see off Team Shepherd’s Simon Kurzbuch with Mugen’s Takaaki Shimo completing the Top 3.  For Q3 topping Alessio Mazzeo, a spin at the end of the straight would end his quest for the overall TQ while for surprise Q4 pace setter Syoki Takahata the round would result in a P11.

‘Whoo, that was super stress’, was Balestri’s reaction, the pressure release of successfully completing stage one of his Worlds campaign clearly evident. The former European champion of both 1:10 and 1:8 Nitro but for who a World title has eluded him, he said the TQ was the result of ‘a lot, a lot of hard work.  Maybe too much, ask my girlfriend’.  Having suffered with the rear end of his Tesla powered LAB CO3 bottoming out over the last three laps of the previous qualifier he said he adjusted the rear springs to raise the rear of the car and the change made it ‘perfect’ for Q5 which would be 1/10th faster than previous fastest TQ time.  Winner of the Warm-up Race held in June, Balestri said, ‘I have to thank Massimo (Fantini) and Patrizio (Rossi) for the work they have made to give me the engines and car’.  With the sixth & final round of qualifying set to run in the morning, when asked what his plan is for it he replied, ‘I need to think about what to do’.

‘I gave everything for the last one to try to TQ one round’, said Kurzbuch.  He continued, ‘but I am still super happy with 2nd’.  Holding third place in the overnight ranking, the Swiss ace said, ‘we should be good for Super Pole so we will try something for that in Q6 to be ready for that.  Calling it the ‘the last chance’, Super Pole is new to the World Championships this year and gives the four drivers qualifying from 2nd through to 5th the chance to shoot is out for a second direct qualifying position in the 1-hour title deciding Main rather than having to contest a Semi final. Each of the drivers will individually get six laps of the track with the driver posting the fastest lap getting the Super Pole pass to the final.

Having went out of Q4 when he collected his crashed team-mate Robert Pietsch, breaking the front suspension and then having to run his Q2 heat half way through Q5, Shimo summed his evening up as ‘very busy’.  The Japanese onroad nitro stalwart, would make a number of changes to his OS powered MTX6 but felt the car was still ‘only ok’ adding it ‘needs more steering’.  ‘Consistent not fast’, he will use the final qualifier to test for the final as he is secure in a Semi Final position. Pietsch would take his example to P7 for the penultimate round to sit fifth in the qualification ranking.

Ending his best result in Q5, Bruno Coelho said of the qualifier, ‘I drove on the limit all the time’.  The only driver from the reigning World Champion manufacturer currently in a Semi Final position, the Xray driver said of his Max powered NT1 ‘its a little slow compared to other guys’.  Feeling the car is ‘not perfect like before’, after his crash with Kurzbuch in Q3 he said the car was completely different and it is still ‘not perfect like before’.  Despite this he was happy to be so close especially after having to avoided a crashed car towards the end of the qualifier that lost him 1/10th and a Top 3 for the round.  Unfortunately Alexander Hagberg’s hopes of things turning around in qualifying haven’t quite been realised and the defending World Champion finds himself 33rd with one qualifier to go.

Posting the 5th fastest time, Dominic Greiner said, ‘we tried to make the rear more stable but made it too stable and now we had oversteer’.  Top Qualifier at the last Worlds Championship two years ago, the Serpent driver said, ‘Its super close’ but conceded, ‘Dario was the best today and he deserves to be TQ’.  Currently holding P4 in the qualification ranking, he said his focus for tomorrow morning’s Q6 is to stay in the Super Pole position and the plan is to ‘put the set-up from before the rain’ back on his Novarossi powered 748.

Completing the Top 6 once again as he did in Q4, Jilles Groskamp said this time the result was down to his actually pace rather others crashing out.  The Team Infinity driver said switching to an early practice set-up had reduced his speed deficit saying, ‘we are not so far from Dario now’. Planning to leave his car unchanged for the final qualifier, the former Top Qualifier wanted to try improve on his lowest point he is counting in his three results.  With the race the debut for the new manufacturer’s first prototype of a touring car, Groskamp said ‘our aim for the race was to get a car in the Semi and now we already have three which is really good for the team’.  Having got a P4 in Q4, team-mate Jesse Davis would end the day with a P9 after he ran out of fuel on the last lap.

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Q2 Update – second TQ run for Balestri

With the top heat of drivers finally getting to run their second qualifier it is Dario Balestri who is the first driver to double up at the seventh running of the Nitro Touring Car World Championships.  With rain bringing a halt to the second round of qualifying yesterday, just as the top heat was about to go on track, after first planning to run the qualifier during Q4 it was moved to Q5 in a hope of bringing more equal track conditions.  In the end 9 of the 10 drivers would better the provisional TQ pace set by Kyle Branson in the second fastest heat, today’s track proving faster.   Setting a new fastest time of the four rounds run so far, Balestri would be 7/10ths faster than Serpent’s Alessio Mazzeo and his Capricorn team-mate Luca Redaelli.  Simon Kurzbuch, Dominic Greiner and Tadahiko Sahashi would complete the Top 6.  Commenting on the run having had a shock issue in the Q3 and the victim of a Robert Pietsch error in Q4, Balestri said, ‘finally another clean run again’.

Ending the round 9th, his best run so far, Branson who is a team-mate to Balestri said, ‘for sure the conditions were different (for the top heat) but it is still my best run’.  The British driver whose next best time is a P12 in Q4, added, ‘I am not doing great at the minute, it’s hard today with the wind’.  A Semi Finalist at the 2012 World Champions in Bangkok, he concluded, ‘I could do with two more Top 10s to get into the Semis’.

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Mazzeo TQs third qualifier at WC

Alessio Mazzeo has TQ’d the third round of qualifying at the Nitro Touring Car World Championship.  After a delayed start to the second day of qualifying as the rain that halted Q2 continued overnight in Italy, the Serpent driver was fastest in the slower track conditions ahead of Robert Pietsch and team-mate Tadahiko Sahashi.  Having taken the opening round of qualifying yesterday, Dario Balestri would manage only the 7th fastest time, as he was hampered by a shock issue on his Capricorn.  Again Bruno Coelho would show strong running on a TQ pace like in Q1 but this time rather than a mistake of his own the Xray driver would crash into the Shepherd of Simon Kurzbuch which spun in front of him in the windy conditions.

I’m really happy because the conditions are very had hard.  There is a lot of wind and this is not good for the car especially under braking’, was Mazzeo’s reaction to his first ever TQ run at a World Championships.  With the moment made more special for the 24-year-old by the fact his mother & brother were here to watch the run, he said the pressure of the occasion lead to his final laps not being perfect.  Still fastest by almost 7/10th of a second, the former European Champion said, ‘For the first 5-laps I took it easy but once I saw the car was OK and had a good feeling for the condition I started to push’. With his next run to be the running of Q2, the round halted by rain yesterday just as the top heat started their engines, he said the track conditions will be the same as Q3 which means they will be a lot slower that the current TQ time for the round which is current held by Kyle Branson.  Commenting on the International Jury decision, he said ‘it is impossible to make the best choice for al drivers so I respect their decision’.  He added, ‘120 drivers raced so it is not good to change that they loose that run either, I will try to push for a good time but for sure it will be slower’.

Pietsch had the opposite view to Mazzeo on the running of their Q2 heat saying, ‘It’s totally unfair, the track is 3-seconds slower’.  The German added, ‘You can’t compare the conditions, it’s the wrong decision’.  On his MTX6 in Q3, the Mugen designer said, ‘the car had a little oversteer and I had to drive careful not to crash it’.  To cure this he will ‘change (his) rear diff for the next one’.

Behind the Picco powered Serpent of Sahashi, Francesco Tironi would prove the surprise of Q3.  Having not been on the radar in practice and 15th in Q1, the Infinity driver described Day 2 of qualifying as ‘much better today’.  The Italian said his prototype touring car from the manufacturer newcomer was quite good yesterday but suffered too much push’.  Making the front of the car 2mm narrow for today, the former World Championship podium finisher said they are now working on caster adjustments saying ‘the car is very sensitive to caster change’.  Having got to complete his Q2 as he is running in the fourth fastest heat, for Q4 he said they will adjust more the caster ‘to find the limit’.

Posting the 5th fastest time Dominic Greiner wasn’t pleased with his car.  The Serpent driver said, ‘the track changed a lot. I had no feeling for the car and it was very difficult to drive’.  Planning to change the car for the next one, he said a softer set-up should work better for today’s low traction conditions.  On the running of Q2, the German said it is ‘super stupid, the track is never the same as yesterday’ adding the qualifier will be ‘a run to test the car’.

Completing the Top 6 Luca Redaelli said he made a front shock change to his Capricorn in anticipation of the conditions but he still struggled suffering with oversteer.  Planning to go back to his original shock set-up, he said now that he is getting over the nerves of contesting his first Worlds he also plans to ‘push more’.  Team-mate Balestri, who was 5/100ths slower over the 5-minutes said he ‘knew immediately something was wrong (with the car), with his mechanic suspecting it was to do with a bad shock which he added ‘we must check’.

Commenting on his incident with Kurzbuch, Coelho said, ‘it was a little difficult because of the wind but the car was perfect.  I was running behind Simon and then he spun in front of me and we crashed. That was the end of the qualifier for me’.  Continuing the rest of the run he would get P18.  Kurzbuch said, ‘I am really sorry for Bruno.  I lost the rear and touched him’.  the 1:8 World Champion continued, ‘I think it was the wind because the car was ok through there all the other laps’.

View complete event results here.

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UPDATE
In an attempt to obtain more equal track conditions the International Jury has decided to move the running of Heat 13 Q3 to late in the day during the fifth round of qualifying.