SIGP returnees & debutants agree over challenging track

After successfully returning to the international 1:8 Offroad race calendar last year, the latest edition of the Sunpadow International Grand Prix is under way with the moving of the race date to a month earlier than last year making for much warmer conditions.  The 2017 IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championship host track’s signature annual event, there also an SIGP Onroad race earlier in the season, last year’s winner Davide Ongaro is absent from the entry which is now headed by last year’s eBuggy winner David Ronnefalk.  Fresh from a double win at the opening race of the new Hongyu GDC 1:8 Offroad track last weekend in Foshan, drivers making their way between races on the China’s bulletin train system, Ronnefalk’s main challenge is going to come from his old team-mate Bruno Coelho, the then Xray driver finishing on the SIGP podium in the nitro final.  Now part of the Infinity team, the Portuguese driver is joined at the 3-circle ARC International RC Racing Track in Xiamen by Kouki Kato, the Japanese driver making his 1:8 Buggy debut on the large track which is built on the grounds of the massive Sunpadow batteries factory.  Also making his SIGP debut, Pekko Iivonen joins his returning Makayo team boss Joseph Quagraine, in taking on the challenging track the Finn more enthused about the track conditions than his main rivals for the large cash prize fund on offer.  With no Ongaro this year, Team Associated will be pinning their hopes on young up & coming Korean talent Jung Hyunkyu, who like Ongaro last year is struggling to get to early terms with bumpy track.

Summing up the track after Thursday’s free practice, Ronnefalk said, ‘The track is similar to last year but a little bit more grip.  I felt last year with the temperature being cooler it was a bit more slick on top and that was a big challenge for us then but this time you have the grip.  The amount of bumps & stuff is the same pretty much.  Last year we were sliding and then grabbing the holes, now we have the grip and we are driving through the holes a little harder.  So this requires a little bit of a different set-up with the tyres and the shock balance but in the end it was pretty close to what I ran here last year.’  Asked about coming off his double win last weekend, the Swede said, ‘I think this is the complete opposite to what I ran there last weekend.  There we were really fast so hopefully we can fine tune it tomorrow and be ready for qualifying here too.  It is a pity the competition is a little less this year compared to last year but we are going to try make the most out of it and so far so good today.’  As last year’s eBuggy winner asked how each of his buggies have been working he said, ‘the schedule was pretty tight today running 2 times in an hour so I already decided to go with only one car and that was nitro.  Then once that was feeling good I just changed the whole electric (buggy) to the set-up on the nitro and made one pack this afternoon and the electric car was feeling good too.’

With this race last year marking his final Xray outing after a successful decade with the Slovakian manufacturer, wrapping up Thursday’s practice Coelho said, ‘It’s tough as always, the track is very challenging and always changing getting more and more bumpy during the day but we know and already expect this’.  Claiming the final step on the podium in Nitro Buggy last year behind Ongaro and a very impressive Mattia Polito in second, he added, ‘It is a race that is very tough and we need to work a lot on the car and be very careful with everything.  We want to go faster but we know we cannot so we need to be patient and work on the car to make it safe and easy to drive.  With electric I am pretty happy at the moment, with nitro we have some more to do.’  The reigning Touring Car World Champion explained, ‘because the car is always jumping it is a kind of mix.  When it has the wheels on the ground it is very good but as soon as it starts to jump it is very difficult to drive.’  On this year’s grip levels, the temperature hitting in the range of 30 degrees today, he said, ‘last year we had a heavy rain which made the track very polished on the top and the cars were sliding all around.  This year we had no rain and I don’t expect any rain before Sunday so the grip is like it was at the beginning of last year.  The grip I would say is not high but medium.’

While he raced here previously 8 years ago when it hosted the IFMAR 1:10 Buggy World Championships, giving his first impression of the track for 1:8 Buggy, Kato said, ‘It’s a big track and the traction is ok but there are many bumps.’  The new Asian Buggy Championships Champion, added, ‘It is a challenging track but a super fun track drive, I’m enjoying it.’  Finishing the day’s practice, things getting more official tomorrow with seeding and the first two of the 5 rounds of qualifying, with almost half his Lexan rear wing missing, he explained, ’There was a lot of traffic and many crashes, so my bad.’  On the switch from last weekend’s low traction conditions of the covered Hongyu GDC track to the higher traction here, he said, ‘the traction is quite different because GDC is quite low.  Will still need some fixes but I think I am already fixing things n the right way so I think we are looking good for when racing starts.’

A driver who is enjoying a jet set 2025 season that also included him making his first visit to Australia where he took on Round 3 of the Asian Buggy Championships in Bribane, giving his thoughts on the SIGP track Pekko said, ‘I think it looks quite cool.  It’s a nice big track and I think it’s kind of how I like it, more like offroad  to have some bumps and character.  I think it will be a good race for sure.’  Describing traction levels as ‘medium grip’, the Finn continued,  ’so we have the grip and there are sharp kind of bumps so that doesn’t make it easy but I think it will be nice racing here.’   On his car and asked if had change much over the and after coming from Hongy GDC, he replied, ‘Not too much.  I will make for changes overnight, change the diffs oils because we didn’t have much time today.  Today was almost all about trying to get as much track time as possible for me because I have never been here but other guys have been and the layout is the same as last year so I just wanted to get laps in.’

Asked his initial opinion of the SIGP track, 14-year-old Hyunkyu replied, ‘The track is so difficult.  I think the shock set-up is so important here because it’s so bumpy.’  He continued, ‘Today was a bit of a lost day for me.  We tried to find the right shock set-up but in the end we couldn’t find it today so I think I need to try a different piston tomorrow and see how that goes.’  In terms of the track he is used to racing at at home, the 14-year-old said, ‘It actually pretty big compared to my Korea track and it is my first time to see this like high grip and a rough track.  It’s a pretty difficult track so I think the car is pretty important here.  We will see tomorrow, I need to do fine tuning.’  Coming off his podium finish at Hongyu GDC last weekend he said ‘its a completely different track, there is low grip while here it is high grip & rough.’