Leino improves pace in Bangkok

Albeit by just 0.004 of a second, Teemu Leino improved on his opening practice pace in the penultimate round to stay on top of the ranking ahead of Nicholas Lee and Dario Balestri.  Running a 3-consecutive lap time of 42.326 in CP3, the Finn topped the round ahead of Serpent’s Mark Green and defending World Champion Meen Vejrak, both drivers also producing their best times so far.  Overall the round made for little change at the top with Leino continuing to hold P1 from Nicholas Lee and Dario Balestri with Green the biggest mover, breaking into the Top 10 to go fourth overall.

Leaving his R10 unchanged, Leino put his improvement down to a change of Novarossi engine with the new unit having ‘more power’.  With the sun already starting to go down in Bangkok, the 2012 Top Qualifier said the track was also slightly better than CP2 due to the cooler conditions.  Planning to leave his car unchanged for the final practice of the sixth running of the 200mm World Championships, he said he wasn’t expecting much from the round.  With the enclosed Huge RC Circuit flood lights already on, he said a combination of the lights and the smoke, which in the evening conditions hangs in the air, this makes it very hard to see with the fumes also very hard on the eyes.  He said he hoped come qualifying, which have now been reduced to 5-minutes rather than 10, the timetable would mean they would not have to run in such conditions.

Taking over as the lead Serpent driver, demoting team-mate Yuya Sahashi to fifth, Green said he was just picking up after being thrown off track by a ‘worn part’ following ‘poor maintenance’ of his 748.  Having started off the event five days ago with a good car he said having begun to lose pace he then tried each of his team-mates’ set-ups.  First trying Dominic Greiner’s and then Alessio Mazzeo’s he said neither suited his 1:8 driving style.  Struggling to find a good set-up, last night the ‘worn part’ was discovered and replaced putting the British ace back on track today with some fine tuning each round giving him his CP3 pace.  Happy with the car and set to run it unchanged in the last practice, he will try ‘some engine stuff’ Novarossi have asked him to test.  Having been working towards 10-minute qualifiers today he said it was annoying to find out last minute that they would be 5-minute duration.  A rule sets out that the heats are reduced to 5-minutes if over 100 entries are received for the event. With just over 100 entries it was initially declared that qualifying would stay at 10-minutes but following some objections the rule was subsequently implemented to many drivers’ disappointment with it felt 10-minute qualifiers are what set the world championship apart from other major events.

Improving his time but falling one place in the overall ranking due to Green’s new speed, Vejrak said said new ‘smoother’ diffs further improved his KM Racing HK-1 ‘a little’.  Unfortunately clipping a curb, the Thai ace rolled leaving him to struggle for the rest of the run discovering afterwards that he had chunked a rear tyre.  Happy with that he is headed in the right way with the car set-up, he said with a bit more power for the next one he should be able to further improve and he hopes to get that ‘punch’ by setting his clutch more aggressive.

Changing only the Picco engine in his 748, Sahashi said his focus for the run was on checking his 5-minute run time.  Unable to better his fastest time he would record 4th for the round declaring himself very happy with how everything is running.  The round would see his 1:8 World Champion brother Tadahiko take his 8 Natrix to 6th but he would not improve on his CP2 pace which currently leaves him 14th.

Kyle Branson was fifth fastest for the round, again unable to improve on his opening practice pace.  The Capricorn driver said having followed Leino around at the start he is very happy with his car set-up but power is an issue.  Changing back to his CP1 XRD engine, having had trouble tuning the engine he used in the second round, he said after a good first two minutes the engine started to go off due to the heat.  For the final practice the British driver will run a third engine saying if he can get that to work he will be very confident going into qualifying.  Team-mate Balestri also struggled with power issues, the Italian only 7th fastest for the round almost half a second off his best time set in the first round.

Having impressed in the second practice, Lee said his Xray pushed too much in the third.  Having left his car unchanged since yesterday’s open practice, he said he is going to have to now make a change, with a rear suspension change on the cards.  Elsewhere the round saw the best times so far for former World Champions Kesuike Fukuda, the 2006 winner, and Jilles Groskamp, the 2012 Electric Touring Car World Champion and 2008 200mm Top Qualifier.  Fukuda posted the 9th fastest time of TP3 to go 17th overall while Groskamp was 13th fastest, moving him up to 19th overall.

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Chassis Focus – Dario Balestri

Chassis – Capricorn Lab C03
Engine – XRD F12 HT
Fuel – Maxima
Tires (handout) – Matrix
Radio/Servo – Sanwa/Savox
Body – Protoform P37
Remarks – Unlike many of the other drivers here, Dario Balestri has going softer in his setup than normal on his Lab C03 to combat the high traction. Running 6mm lower shock towers and big bore shocks they are fitted with very soft pink front and green rear springs from Capricorn’s electric car. The Italian has also removed the mounting screws from the front of the radio plate to increase flex and has reduced from 1 million to 500,000 oil in the front gear diff. A nice option is the tungsten battery plate which is 130 grams by itself, much heavier than the equivalent brass option.

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Video – Controlled Practice Rd2

Lee heads second practice to go P2

Although hotter conditions made for generally slower track with Teemu Leino remaining fastest with his time from the morning’s opening practice, Xray’s Nicholas Lee set the pace in the second timed practice to improve to 2nd in the overall seeding order.  Improving on his opening time by 3/10ths, the Singapore driver headed the times from Serpent’s Yuya Sahashi by 1/10th.  Having struggled to find form, the round would see defending World Champion Meen Vejrak make a huge performance leap as he posted the 3rd fastest time ahead of Leino to move himself into 6th overall.

Again running his NT1 unchanged Lee said he was ‘happy’ to top the round but continued to be critical of the consistency of his own driving describing it as ‘so so’.  Feeling that traction was for him higher this time round than in the morning, he said his set-up was again good adding he had no reason to make any changes and for the third of the four timed practices he would just make a switch of Novarossi engines for a comparison with regards to picking one for tomorrow’s qualifying.

Improving 2 places in the overall standings to move up to fourth with his improved time, Sahashi said his extra speed came from better gearing.  Changing to a higher first gear ratio on his 748 Natrix, the Japanese driver said the extra acceleration was an improvement on an otherwise unchanged set-up. Set to continue with the car as is the only thing he will do for the penultimate timed practice is a switch of his Picco engines.

A slightly relieved looking Vejrak said a change of shock set-up on his KM Racing HK-1 was a ‘big step forward’.  Changing the pistons & oil front & rear, he said the softer set-up together with added chassis weight made the car ‘super stable’.  Looking to build on his new direction of set-up, he will make a few tweaks for the next outing to try and get a little more overall speed.

Leino said while conditions made his HB R10 easier to drive, the understeer brought on by the hotter conditions made for a slower 3-consecutive lap time.  Over 4/10ths off his current seeding topping time, the Finn said the morning conditions while much trickier was when his car was at it best.  Set to leave his set-up unchanged and having used the TP2 to evaluate fuel mileage he will run another Novarossi engine for a comparison.

Although he didn’t improve on his time, Team Shepherd’s Dirk Wischnewski ran fifth fastest for the round.  Dropping one place overall to 8th due to Vejrak’s improvement, the former European Champion said his Velox V10 felt much the same but he will consider trying to get a little more steering.   Only 0.038 off his morning pace, he said the risk with such a change is that it could induce traction roll.  Completing the Top 6 times for the round but not improving his fastest time was Alexander Hagberg.

In the Capricorn camp, engine issues caused problems for both Dario Balestri and Kyle Branson.  Balestri, who was P2 in the first round but now drops behind Lee, would not complete the 10-minutes.  The Italian could only manage the 10th fastest time before his LAB C02 suffered a stripped gear with 2-minutes remaining.  Having changed engine for the round to get a second one ready for tomorrow, Branson could not get a good tune on the XRD engine and could only manage 17th for the round.

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Leino tops first timed practice

Teemu Leino topped the first round of timed practice this morning as things got official at the 1:10 200mm World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.  The HB driver took his R10 around the Huge RC Circuit in the fastest 3-consecutive laps to head the times from open practice pace setter Dario Balestri by 0.255 of a second with Kyle Branson completing the Top 3.  Again defending World Champion Meen Vejak found himself somewhat off the pace with the KM driver posting only the 19th fastest time.

‘Really good’ was how Leino summed up his performance,  the 2012 World Championship Top Qualifier putting his improvement down to the fact he ‘fired (his) mechanic’, himself, and got the car’s designer Takashi Miyashita to prep the car for today’s running.  The Finn said while they changed nothing on the set-up, Miyashita just made everything perfect on the Novarossi powered R10 giving a car he was ‘super happy’ with.  Suffering one spin over the 10-minute run, when he tried a different line through the centre section of the track, the dirty track offline causing the car to lose traction, he said with the track changing so much between runs he will not make any changes for the second timed practice.  Expecting the track, which is producing unprecedented grip levels, to have less traction due to hotter conditions he said he wants to see how this effects the car before he goes about making any changes.  Interestingly for Leino’s HB teammate Adrien Bertin, the former World Champion struggling in open practice,  it was discovered last night that his Futaba radio had been pre-installed with the wrong software.  With Hideo Kitazawa installing the correct software for today, Bertin said his Orion powered example of the R10 felt more normal today but he said the radio issue meant the last four days were wasted and now he has to start from fresh in finding a set-up.

Balestri said he was ‘very happy’ with the first timed run.  The Capricorn driver felt his C03 set-up was ‘perfect’ but a clutch issue meant he could not get the most from the controlled Matrix tyres.  With the clutch going loose and coming in too early about 3-minutes into the run, the Italian said this was when the tyres would start to come in but this issue aside ‘everything else was good’ and other than adjusting the clutch on his XRD engine he will run the car the same for the next one.

Capricorn team-mate Branson, who was 10th fastest over one lap in timed practice, said he always knew the consistency of his C03 was ‘super good’.  Like Balestri he would also suffer some clutch issues saying it started to slip.  Feeling the car had a ‘little too much front traction’ for the next run he will take off some front camber.  Switching late yesterday to a new rear wing Protoform had sent over for its team drivers to deal with the unique traction levels, the 20-year-old  said this helped a lot with improving the overall stability of the car.  For TP2 the British ace will make an engine change. Very happy with how his XRD unit is running he wants to save it and get another ready should he need it later in the event.

Heading the Xray challenge in the first timed practice was Nicolas Lee.  Running his Novarossi powered NT1 the same as he did in yesterday’s open practice when he was 9th fastest, the Singapore driver said he just worked on his driving.  While pleased with setting the 4th fastest time, he feels he still needs to work on his overall consistency for qualifying saying 3-laps is very different to 10-minutes.

Setting the fifth fastest time was JJ Wang.  One of only two US drivers contesting this year’s World Championships, the other being Xray driver Loran Whiting,  the winner of the Worlds Warm-up Race declared his run as ‘solid’.  The 16-year-old factory Mugen driver said with the track changing every run they have got to fine tune the set-up of his Novarossi powered MTX-6 but added his big focus is on his driving.  ‘Not pushing hard’, he is working on consistency adding that ‘qualifying matters’ and consistency is going to be the key to a good 10-minute time.

Top Serpent for the round with the sixth fastest time was Yuya Sahashi.  The Japanese driver used the opening run to test fuel mileage of his Picco engine on the large tyres, the timed practice being the first time it was mandatory for drivers to run on a brand new set of the pre-trued diameter controlled Matrix tyres. Pleased with the run time and performance of his engine, he said his 748 was on the edge in terms of wanting to traction roll and as a result he will make yet to be decided changes to his set-up for the second run.

Raising the front upper arms on his Shepherd, Dirk Wischnewski said the changes improved his Orcan powered Velox V10 ‘a little’ with it easier to drive and more consistent.  Setting the sixth fastest time in the first 5-minutes a roll would cause his rear tyre to chunk, preventing him from getting the most of the tyres as the diameter reached its optimum.  Pulling off early so as not to end up ‘destroying’ his car as it got difficult to drive due to the damaged tyre, the German said with the car now feeling ok he would stay the same and try to work on getting his confidence back in his driving.

Team-mate Francesco Tironi was next up with the seventh fastest time.  The 2012 podium finisher said thanks to the ground work of team-mate Jilles Groskamp, who did the majority of Shepherd’s testing for the event, his car has been good each time.  Describing his Velox V10 set-up as being ‘really close now’ for both himself as a driver and as a 10-minute qualifying car he said for CP2 they will just make camber changes once on track.  In the engine department the factory Novarossi driver said he will also make an engine switch for the run.

Posting the 9th fastest time having been closest to Balestri in open practice, Alexander Hagberg said today he is struggling with a lack of corner speed.  The Swede said his Orcan powered NT1 feels good but it is way too slow.  Running a low centre of gravity head on his Orcan engine, which he said it is proving very advantageous for ‘problems’ presented by the unique track conditions, he is not yet sure what changes he can make to his car to try and sort his speed issues.

Completing the Top 10 was recently crowned Euro Nitro Series 1:8 Champion Simon Kurzbuch.  The factory Shepherd driver, who is better known for his 1:8 Onroad exploits, said things are going ‘better & better’ with each run.  Happy he has mastered both the driving style change required from switching from 1:8 to 1:10 as well as coming to grips with the massive traction levels, the Swiss ace said while his Velox V10 is ‘always on the limit’ he has managed to avoid flipping and for a 10-minute qualifier he feels both he and the car are ‘ok’.

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