Chassis Focus – Burak Kilic (Mugen Seiki)
Chassis – Mugen Seiki MBX8R
Engine – Nova Engines X3
Fuel – NitroLux
Tires – 6mik Dash
Radio – Sanwa M17S
Servos – Sanwa PGS-XR II (steering) / PGS-XB II (throttle)
Body – 6mik Optima
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Kilic closer but another TQ run for Ongaro
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.
Chassis Focus – Pekko Iivonen (Mayako)
Chassis – Mayako MX8-25LE
Engine – O.S. Speed B2105
Fuel – Nitrolux
Tires – 6mik Dash Blue
Radio – Sanwa M17
Servos – Ultimate RSX8 (steering & throttle)
Body – Mayako
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Ongaro from Kilic as qualifying gets underway in Manila
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 Focus – Davide Ongaro (Team Associated)
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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Ongaro tops seeding at Philippine Masters
Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro goes into qualifying at the Philippine Masters tomorrow as the Top Seed, the Italian being one of three different drivers to top each of the seeding rounds today at Round 2 of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships. With Infinity’s Kouki Kato laying down the opening pace, Mugen Seiki’s Burak Kilic topped the second round but fell short of bettering Kato’s fastest 2-consecutive laps. With Ongaro somewhat off the pace in SP2, he would bounce back for the final round being the only one of the Top 6 to improve finding 8/10ths of a second on his previous best to better the Japanese driver’s time by a 1/10th. Overall Kato, winner of the 2024 Asian Buggy Championship season final in Indonesia, will be the No.2 seed ahead of Kilic. Team Associated’s Alex Bernadzik ended the day P4, the 2023 ABC Australia race winner’s best run coming in SP2, followed by Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura and Sworkz’ Mattia Polito.
Reacting to his seeding topping run, Ongaro said, ‘It was good. Honestly it was the best one we had today. Tyres were ok, we put the same compound as yesterday so the one that is working because at one point I had to use it to see if the car works and yeah the car was good, tyres, engine and everything was OK.’ Using Matrix Blackhole tyre in clay soft compound, he said the car was now ‘what I need and what I want so I can push and make two good laps and check the rhythm for 5-minutes so its good. We are in good shape for tomorrow.’ It was double top seeding for Ongaro as he also set the fastest time in eBuggy with team-mate Bernadzik making it an AE 1-2 ahead of Kyosho’s Ryan Lutz who completed the Top 3.
Using the final seeding round to break in a new set of Hotrace Sahara tyres for qualifying, Kato said they only came in after about 4-minutes at which point it as too late to push for an improvement on his SP1 time. Despite being just 5th fastest for the round, the Japanese driver is confident he has a very good car going into the first 2 rounds of qualifying that make up Friday’s action at the Circulo Verde track. The 18-year-old said, ‘the car is still good and it is consistent. We now have two sets of tyres ready to go so for tomorrow so we will the set-up the same and just just go out on the used tyres.’
Asked how he was looking going into qualifying having ended the day P3, Kilic said, ‘Everything is good. My 5-minute pace is really strong’. Having originally planned to use SP3 to break in a fresh set of 6mik tyres for tomorrow, the Turkish driver said in the end he didn’t have enough time to get the tyres ready. Changing something in the front of the car he said, ‘It didn’t work out how I wanted’ and so for Q1 he will revert back to his previous set-up. On not having a second set of tyres broken in for qualifying Kilic didn’t seem to bothered adding the wear is low so I will use the one set of tyres for all of qualifying.’
Bernadzik summed up SP3 with, ‘It was pretty good, pretty clean, although I could of got a couple of tidier laps. Each lap I did do had some sort of bobble’. The 22-year from Brisbane continued, ‘I think my 5-minute pace is right there and that’s what sort of matters for tomorrow. I made some set-up change to make the car easier to drive which definitely helped. It was pretty radical in that second round so we put a bit more rear toe-in to lock in the rear end and it helped.’ In terms of tyres, Bernadzik has chosen to go for JConcepts Double Bar super soft clay compound adding he plans to stick with that for both qualifying and the final.
Asked about ending the day in P5, Matsukura responded with, ‘not bad for me’. Running the same tyres as his team-mate Kato, but a slightly different chassis set-up, the Japanese driver thinks qualifying should be OK but added that today it was taking him too long to find his rhythm and it is was not until the end of the run that he was ‘warmed up’. Planning to try and drive more smooth tomorrow, the multiple onroad World Champion said running safely feels more slow but overall the time is still good.’
Summing up his day, Polito was overall happy with how it went adding he is confident the car has the consistency for a good 5-minute pace. One thing the SIGP podium finisher did add was that he was still chasing a bit more steering and that this would have to come from a set-up change. Like Ongaro, the Italian is running Matrix Blackhole tyre in Supersoft Clay compound, describing them as ‘perfect’ for the track here in Manila.