Presenting your Top 4 qualifiers

With rain causing the cancellation of the 5th and 6th rounds of qualifying, its Massimo Fantini who will line up first for the 1 hour long main final on Saturday. We talked to the Serpent 960 driver, and owner of Max engines, and he is very confident going in to the final, “To be honest we were very confident because my team mate Fabio and Andrea went for testing on the track and said the car works very good and also the engine. We had a big advantage for the 5 minutes we had almost no problem to run the qualification without any additional refuelling stop. I could push stronger in the heats and the car was good and the important thing is making no mistakes and i was able to make the top qualifier in all the rounds”. When asked about his chances for the final he said “we are checking our strategy and to be honest we are quite confident, the only thing is the final is very long and anything can happen, also the other competitors are strong, so i need to be cool and make no mistakes”. “I was already in the main final of a World Championship several times and what it is, is hardcore racing”.

The 7-time World Champion Lamberto Collari, racing for Kyosho, lines up in 2nd spot and despite ending up 3 seconds behind Max on pole position he was obviously very confident going into tomorrows final, “Its difficult to know now what will happen. The 2nd position means I can do a good final and I am positive because I had one of the best qualifying times”. Asked if he feels he could have snatched the pole position if the final 2 rounds of qualifying had been run he was “I think for sure the track should have the possibility to be better and I could have done a better time, the reality is different”.

French racer, and former World Champion, Adrien Bertin was very satisfied to make it directly into the final in 3rd position, the Kyosho race stated that “yes, I am really happy because it is now 10 years that I am taking part in the final of Worlds and for me it was very good because in the beginning with preparation (being limited) due the engine matters I am very satisfied and I would like to thank my sponsors and also the Picco company who support me, and hope to bring back a good result tomorrow”.

Last of the top 4 racers and first of the American runners, Chris Tosolini is in confident form ahead of the main final and despite not making 34 like he wished, he said “Yeah, I’m happy, I was a little worried if we didn’t get the rain that someone could bump me out. I rebuilt the car for the final round of qualifying and found a few mistakes in the car so I think I can do 34. I wanted to make top 4 so I didn’t have to have any trouble in the semi thats the most important”. When asked whether he was confident of his chances for the final he said yes, “as long as I’ve been racing I’ve been confident and having a perfect hour, and I don’t get too nervous so I just want to have a perfect hour at a good fast pace and we’ll see. As long as we have no problems we have a good chance”.

Todays lower finals are just about to begin on a now dry track, and the organisers have put sugar water down to help bring up traction. We will bring you the results as we get them

You can view the sorted finals listing here (.xls).

View our event image gallery here.

More rain on Friday morning

Yet another day beginning with rain, the weather was dry earlier in the morning, but a heavy shower around 7.30am soaked the track again and now with the sun out the organisers are working quickly to dry the track so that racing can resume, but the likelihood that round 6 of qualifying will be run is looking increasingly unlikely. The more likely scenario is that the organisers will go straight into the lower finals when the track dries, but we will wait for confirmation of this. If this does happen, then its Massimo Fantini, racing a Serpent 960, that has claimed the TQ spot for this years World Championships ahead of Collari, Bertin and Tosolini.

UPDATE: Despite the track beginning to dry, it has not done so quick enough and round 6 has been officially abandoned. Lowers final will begin in a number of hours. We will have a report on your top 4 soon.

Racing for today is called off

Today’s racing has been cancelled due to the heavy rain, that has kept coming, and with no chance of the track drying up the race control made an announcement calling a halt to today’s proceedings. Good news for those that didn’t get a chance to improve their time, all is not lost as tomorrow morning there will be one final round of heats to be run in the morning before the lower finals. We are now leaving the track as there is nothing happening here and unfortunately everyone else is leaving too, so we will have no one or nothing to photograph or any information to find out.

We will be back first thing tomorrow to bring you news from the last round of qualifying and the lower finals.

The rains have arrived

The racers have woken up to heavy rain on Thursday’s final day of qualifying, meaning that any chances of improving are pretty much zero as the rain is set to be here for the day, only set to stop very late in the day. We will keep you posted on what happens but as it is now (not official) there will be no running today and the 5th and 6th round of qualifying will be abandoned. We will go around the pits to try and get some pictures and product information, so stay tuned.

Fantini in control in Cordoba after 4 rounds

It’s Fantini that is quickest after 4 rounds as the sun came and slowed the heats slightly even though the Italian Serpent driver managed to be quickest in the round with a 34 laps in 10:18 to be the only driver to claim a 34 lap run in round 4 after Lamberto Collari stopped on track when on his way to a 34 lap run. Collari maintains his 2nd position he picked up in the 3rd round, while Kyosho team mate Adrien Bertin improved his time by 2 seconds to claim a 33 laps in 10:00.84, although he wasn’t very happy about once more missing out on a 34 lapper, venting his frustration on a wall on his return to his pit area.

The biggest improvement of the day came from Chris Tosolini, the Sirio backed Kyosho driver, managed to secure himself the final direct qualifying position with 33 Laps in 10:00.84 to demote Italian Danielle Ielasi to 5th, and pole position for the semi’s, despite having improved his time. Chris mentioned that “Yesterday we had a lot of problems with the engine, just too lean, we talked about the problems last night and we tried a lower gear today to get more punch so the engine runs a little easier”, “in the first run i didn’t get to do my warmup cause my cell phone was in my pocket and it was making my car go crazy, so I didn’t warmup my tires or my engine, so in the first run I was 6th, not bad, I figure if we warm up the tires and warm up the engine we can do a 34”. “So in the 2nd round we had a good warm up, things didn’t feel perfect, so I ran good and I did a flat, almost 34, but tomorrow I want to do a 34”.

Another one of the many to go better today is German Shepherd driver who went 33 Laps in 10:02.54 lifting himself into 6th demoting Kyosho racer Takaaki Shimo to 7th, having not improved in round 4.

Having had trouble in the 3rd round with his brakes not working, he made a number of mistakes in his run which he scrapped, but came back in round 4 to post a 33 Laps in 10:04.99, despite having to stop twice for fuel. The Motonica racer said “Yesterday I tried to find the good setup of the Orion valve (CPD) but I wasn’t able to and had some trouble, so today I took it off and did 2 pitstops and did a very good time in 8th position with 2 refuelling”. “I think that today it was necessary to guarantee the semi final and tomorrow we can work with only 1 pit stop to have a better result”

Current European B Champion Jernej Vuga has jumped his way into the top 15 with a quick run in round 3, having been plagued with radio problems during the practice sessions, however he couldn’t improve in round 4. “After all the problems I had I think its a very nice position, we can improve of course, but we had 3 days of radio problems which was very difficult for us”. “I managed somehow to get a pretty decent setup for the car, the engine ran pretty well and i managed to put together a pretty good qualifying heat without too many big mistakes”.

Unofficial Results after round 4
1. MASSIMO FANTINI – 34 Laps in 10:14.91 (Serpent/Max)
2. LAMBERTO COLLARI – 34 Laps in 10:18.02 (Kyosho/Novarossi)
3. Adrien Bertin – 33 Laps in 10:00.84 (Kyosho/Picco)
4. CHRIS TOSOLINI – 33 Laps in 10:00.88 (Kyosho/Sirio)
5. DANIELE IELASI – 33 Laps in 10:01.28 (Kyosho/Picco)
6. Pietsch Robert – 33 Laps in 10:02.54 (Shepherd/Novarossi)
7. TAKAAKI SHIMO – 33 Laps in 10:03.19 (Kyosho/OS)
8. DARIO BALESTRI – 33 Laps in 10:04.99 (Motonica/Novarossi)
9. HIDEO KITAZAWA – 33 Laps in 10:05.08 (Mugen/OS)
10. MICHELE ROMAGNOLI – 33 Laps in 10:05.19 (Serpent Max)
11. Salven Michael – 33 Laps in 10:05.48 (Serpent/Mega)
12. Mark Green – 33 Laps in 10:06.91 (Serpent/Mega)
13. WALTER SALEMI – 33 Laps in 10:08.55 (Mugen/Ninja)
14. STEFANO SOLAROLI – 33 Laps in 10:09.31 (Mugen/Picco)
15. JERNEJ VUGA – 33 Laps in 10:09.35 (Mugen/Novarossi)

The 3rd and 4th round for heats 1-6 will be run in reverse order after lunch and until they are completed we can’t give you any complete results.

UPDATE: Complete Results after round 4 can be downloaded here (.xls).

View our event image gallery here.