Kato again in Q2 as Iivonen throws it away under the lights at Pine Hills

Racing under the flood lights at the Pine Hills track in Brisbane, Infinity’s Kouki Kato made it two from two in qualifying at the third round of the Asian Buggy Championships.  Again it was a last lap mistake that promoted Kato to the top of the timing screens, this time top seed Pekko Iivonen with the costly error.  With driver errors the talking point of qualifying so far, Iivonen dropped two & a half seconds as a result of his mistake allowing Kato to back up Q1 with another TQ run by 1.358-seconds over the Finn’s Mayako.  Racing under flood lights in order to get a second round of qualifying in the books as the forecast is giving rain for the morning, Jackson Beale would complete the Top 3 for Tekno.  After an error in Q1 that left him P10, a clean run in Q2 allowed the 19-year-old to back up his strong showing in seeding.  After a P2 in the first round, last year’s race winner Caleb Noble had two bad laps and ended up P5 behind Pine Hill Club President Zac Ryan.  Opening with a P3, Jayden Edmunds again had traffic issues but this time it lead to a costly error and he ended the day with a P6. Opening the second round of qualifying with a TQ run in eBuggy ahead of Iivonen and Tyler Jones, Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik couldn’t repeat in Nitro ending up 7th.

‘Same as Q1, the last lap it changed and I was at the top’, was Kato’s reaction after the second of the currently scheduled four rounds of qualifying.    Having made a major mistake himself on the last lap of Q1, asked about his driving this time round and if it had improved he laughed and responded with, ‘no, it was the same’.  This time however he said the mistake was earlier in the run.  Finding track conditions more loose due to the cooler conditions of the after dark evening run, asked if the set-up change he tested in earlier still bright 2nd eBuggy qualifier worked he said it hadn’t so he ran his nitro buggy unchanged.  Should tomorrow turn out to be dry, he said they still need to work on improving the current set-up.

That was much better than the last one. I think i found out the problem I had in Q1, my car was  too soft and that’s why it was doing some weird thing.  Now it was quite good but I tuned the engine a little bit and it came out too lean and I wasn’t that confident with the throttle so that probably cost me some time and the last lap mistake was probably because of that.  Looking to Day 2 of the qualifying, he said, ‘the car feels super good  so I think when I get the engine done right it will be quite good.’

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Kato takes Q1 in Brisbane

The first round of qualifying is in the books at the third round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships and it was Infinity’s Kouki Kato who came out on top in Brisbane.  The Japanese driver claimed the first TQ run of the weekend ahead of last year’s Australian round winner Caleb Noble, the Tekno driver benefitting from mistakes by a number of key contenders.  Winner of the opening round of the championship in New Zealand back in March, Jayden Edmunds completed the Top 3 as the top Mayako, his team-mate Pekko Iivonen, having topped seeding, having a run he summed as ‘bad’.  The Finnish driver said his tyres just didn’t feel right and he struggled ending up with a P12.  Suffering a number of mistakes, Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik had good speed but ended up P4 while having TQ’d the first round of eBuggy, Sparko’s Tyler Jones opened with a P5, the American another with a costly mistake in the run.

‘Lucky’ was how Kouki summed up Q1, as he benefited from a last lap mistake by Bernadzik but then had a mistake of his own on his last lap.  Holding on for the TQ by 1.864 from Noble, he explained, ‘I had a mistake maybe 4-seconds but Alex’s mistake was bigger he lost about 8-seconds.’  Feeling Bernadzik is slightly faster in terms of overall pace, asked what was the reason for the mistakes, the Japanese driver laughed and replied, ‘I relaxed too much on the last lap trying to keep it safe.’  For Q2, the ABC Indonesia and Philippines race winner plans to test a set-up change on his eBuggy and if that works will copy it on his nitro buggy for the final run of the day.

Producing a clean sweep of wins here 12-months ago, Noble, who lives a 15-hour drive away, described his car as ‘not too bad’ adding ‘we are getting closer.’  Trying a different compound for Q1, he said, ‘we were running 5th, jump up to 4th, and then I was lucky that Alex and Tyler made mistakes on their last laps which bumped me to second.  It was pretty solid.  I drove really clean and just tried to drive consistent with what I had.’   Asked what he is still searching for in the car, the 18-year-old said, ‘we’re trying to find a bit more stability in the cornering.  I was picking up the inside really bad, not allowing me to push as hard as I wanted to, we fixed that for Q1 but came across a bit of understeer now so we are trying to chase that a little bit but the car is much easier to drive, not quite fast enough but easy to drive so we’ve got that in our pocket.’   Running the TZO 500 tyre, he will try their 202 for the cooler Q2 conditions and expected lower grip.

‘Not the cleanest run but it was pretty good’ was how Edmunds described his P3 performance.   The 19-year-old Australian, for whom the Pine Hills track is a fly away race, continued, ‘I made one mistake on the second to last lap but the whole run I was in traffic with 2 cars around me the whole time.  They were a bit quicker so I was letting them go but then they’d have a mistake I then I had to let them go again so I lost a little bit of time and rhythm.  The car felt good, no major problems there.’  For Q2, a threat of rain tomorrow meaning an earlier start to quali than scherduled, he said, ‘I think I am going to make a tyre change for the next one.  I am just going to go to a different thread pattern cause the temperature is going to drop and the track will get a little bit slick so going from the new Napoli to the Sahara which we found generates a little more grip here this weekend.’

A little frustrated with his driving in the opening qualifier Bernadzik said, ‘It was OK, I think my motor was a bit too lean and it was a bit hard to hang on to but the car speed was right there.  I just need to clean it up the next one’.   Suffering ‘three or four bad ones’ (crashes) over the 5-minutes he said one ‘was upside down’ and another ‘I had to fully readjust the car’.  Looking to Q2, the 2023 winner of the event said they plan to change the tune on the engine and then its up to him to drive it and ‘keep it on all four wheels.’

Opening qualifying with the TQ in Electric Buggy, in nitro the first lap put Jones on the back foot.  He explained, ‘I started out with a wreck on my first lap and then I was trying to play catch up and then caught up to Alex (Bernadzik).  It was just a racing deal, we are both fast and you can’t really pass so I tried to kind of make a move and then he was faster so I kind of let him back, we were just racing.’  On his car, the American said, ‘It was good, I just made too many mistakes.  The speed is there and I just need to drive better.  I need to calm down and drive’.  Asked if he planned any changes for Q2, he replied, ‘I am going to stick to the same, I have wrenched a lot today so I am kind of taking a mental break.  I think I will be alright.’

Iivonen tops seeding at Asian Buggy C/ships Australia

Mayako’s Pekko Iivonen has got his first ever visit to Australia off to a strong start, the Finn topping seeding for Round 3 of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships in Brisbane.   Racing on the oil treated Pine Hills track, Iivonen set the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the two seeding rounds ahead of another track first timer Kouki Kato, the Infinity driver 3/10th of a second off his rival.  Heading the local challenge was last year’s Top Qualifier, the Team Associated of Alex Bernadzik just 8/100ths off the Japanese visitor with the Tekno of fellow Aussie Jackson Beale fourth fastest.  With 2025 the attracting Australian round of the championship’s biggest international entry, it was another visitor who completed the Top 5 with American Sparko team driver Tyler Jones travelling 29-hours for his first ever race outside of the USA.  With a threat of rain showers tomorrow, the oil treated surface being very slick in the damp, drivers are in for a busy first official day of action in Brisbane as Race Director Scotty Ernst pushes to get two rounds of qualifying in the books today in case.

One of the stars of the previous round, the Philippine Masters back in May, Iivonen is settling in well on his first visit Down Under saying, ‘It super nice here, I really like it, the track is super nice, food is nice, so it’s super good.’   On his performance the 22-year-old said, ‘the track feels super good and the car is working quite good.  Today I was testing tyres in practice because I didn’t have my rims or inserts yesterday so I just ran with the same set all day.  I think now I have found a set I will go with for the race and the car feels super good’ – his tyre choice being the 6mik Dash Inter.  Asked how he is finding the track layout, the surface similar to that of the Philippine Masters, he said, ‘I really like it.  The surface is good, the grip level is super nice, it has a bit more grip than the Philippine Masters, and I like the size of the track, it is super nice.  Some of the jumps there are some holes in the lips that throws the car around but otherwise its really good.’

Asked about his seeding runs, Kato replied, ‘It’s getting better’.  Claiming his second Asian Buggy Championships race win at the previous round in the Philippines, the 19-year-old explained, ‘we changed the diff and the anti roll bar for the second run and it was better.  In seeding 1 I had super understeer so we are working to get more steering.  We just need to dial in the car a little bit more and I think we are looking OK for Q1.’  Choosing Hotrace’s Sahara Clay as his tyre of choice, Kato was very complimentary of track surface and layout, saying, ‘the track layout is super nice and not too difficult and the grip is very high.  The track size is perfect, not too big, not too small.’

Describing his car as ‘very edgy’ in the first round of seeding, Bernadzik said he ‘made a few changes to settle it down’ for SP2 but then felt ‘the grip disappeared from the track a little bit’ resulting in the car being ‘a bit slidy and a bit slow’.  Planning to revert back to his SP1 set-up, on the overall track conditions he said, ‘for sure compared to the last club day we had, the grip is definitely higher.  And then once rubber goes down on the track the grip comes up’.  Running JConcepts Double Bar on his RC8, he said this is his normal go to for the Pine Hill track, the 23-year-old living around 1-hour from the track which is located in a local park area.  For qualifying, Bernadzik feels his ‘consistency is very good’ and if he ‘just backs off a couple of percent’ he ‘can keep it clean for the long runs’.

Living just 20-minutes from the track summing up his seeding effort Beale said, ‘the first run was really good, the car was super easy to drive and super fast so I thought I would just make a couple of changes and see if I could gain a bit more speed or make it even easier to drive.’  He continued, ‘I made a couple of changes for the second one but it wasn’t as good.  I was a little bit too stiff with my rear springs.  The car was still really good but just wasn’t were it was at in the first seeding round’.  Running Jetko J1 Ultra Soft tyre, asked how the track compares to normal weekly racing here, the 19-year-old said, ‘maybe the grip is a little higher cause of the constant laps on the track this weekend and we’ve being oiling it a lot recently so that too brings the grip up.’  For Q1 he will revert back to the same spring he ran in the first seeding round and he might also take a couple of mill out of the rear droop and then ‘just drive it’.

On his seeding Top 5, Jones said, ‘the last seeding round my car was a lot better.  I just made a couple of small tweaks.’  The 25-year-old added, ‘I have never really raced on anything like this.  I am used to loose dirt and rough bumps.’  Asked what the biggest challenge of adapting to the hard polish surface was he said, apart from the cast he is in after breaking his wrist some time ago, ‘the layout is challenging, it’s technical so you’ve got to hit your marks every lap.  My car’s set-up is fine.  I have kind of being driving bad and blaming my car but overall I am having fun and I’m getting better each run.  I just need to get a bit more comfortable with the track surface’.  On tyres he has gone with the Clay Sahara from Hotrace.