Coelho Top Qualifier at FEMCA Championship

Bruno Coelho is the Top Qualifier at this year’s FEMCA ISTC Championship, the Xray driver picking up where he left off yesterday to top the third round of qualifying this morning in Foshan, China.  Faced with low traction conditions for the 3rd of the 5 scheduled qualifier, this would prove to be Coelho’s slowest TQ run so far with the World Champion unable to match the two 25-lap runs he posted in yesterday’s opening two qualifiers around the GDC Indoor track.  Again it was Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura who presented the biggest challenge, the gap however at the end of the 5-minutes still significant at 3.3-seconds this time round.  After a slow opening lap, Shin Sawada would recover to complete the Top 3 times, the Xray driver benefiting from his fellow countryman Kouki Kato rolling his Infinity on the curbing coming onto the main straight on lap 16 which cost him over 2.5 seconds.  Behind Kato, the Awesomatix of Rocket Zhang led the home challenge, the well known Chinese driver rounding out the Top 5 ahead of the similar car of Maxim Laverychev.

Reacting to the first run of the morning Coelho said, ‘It was pretty slippery this morning.  I think the track was for some reason much more slippy than yesterday.  I hope the track conditions will get better for the next round.  If not for sure we will have to change our set-up to generate more traction’.  Asked its thoughts on the low traction he said, ‘The tyres are getting more and more worn so they should be better so there is no reason for this low traction but I hope it gets better for the next one’.  Pleased to lock in the overall TQ early, the Portuguese driver said this gives him the option to use the last two rounds to try some more ‘drastic’ changes on the car.

A driver who has struggled to get traction, asked about his Q3 performance, Matsukura replied, ‘today the traction is even lower.’  Having checked over his car after crashing heavily into a marshal’s foot yesterday and thankfully found nothing to be damaged, the Japanese driver said he didn’t make any set-up changes for this morning but somewhat left scratch his head on how to find improvement said he now he must think what he can do for the remaining two rounds concluding ‘we need to try a new idea’.

‘No grip today, yesterday was so so, today no grip so I had to drive safe’, was how Sawada summed up Q3.  Having had a mistake while running P2 in yesterday’s second qualifier that dropped him to P3, the 20-year-old said this morning’s run was clean but ‘just too slow’.  Asked if he planned to wait to see if the track improves for the penultimate qualifier or change his car, he replied, ‘I will change the set-up.  I will make the car more narrow, narrow hubs.’  Having run 2.5 rear toe he will also go to 3 degrees for the next one.

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Coelho tops seeding in Foshan

Bruno Coelho is the top seed at the FEMCA Championship for Electric Touring Car in Foshan City, China, the Xray driver laying down his fastest time in the third & final round of practice at GDC.  With the indoor carpet track getting faster and faster each round as the hard compound controlled Rush tyres come in,  Coelho’s time was 7/10ths of a second quicker than his near rival Naoto Matsukura over his 3-consecutive with Infinity team-mate & fellow countryman Koki Kato completing the Top 3 a further 3/10ths down.   A Spec class finalist at the recent IFMAR ISTC World Championships in California, the Xray of Shin Sawada would post the fourth fastest time ahead of the similar car of Chinese National Champion Jerry Dai who claimed 5th at last year’s FIRC.

With Portuguese 1:8 Offroad racer Ricardo Monteiro here in China with him as his mechanic, on the completion of seeding Coelho said, ‘We are still trying small things on the car, the car is working pretty good so we don’t want to destroy the good work that was done until now so just making small differences but its looking good for qualifying.’  The World Champion added, ‘The tyres are getting better and better, they are still very fresh, I think the start to work around the 6th battery when the are on their peak but its the same for all.  We are improving all the time so it is not really fair test at the moment to test anything because it doesn’t matter what you do you go faster because the tyre has more grip but it is nice to understand the car like it behaviour compared to before.’

‘It is not the same like yesterday, we are lacking traction today compared to yesterday’, that was how Matsukura described his seeding performance.  He added, ‘It is colder today so maybe this is why but we need to find traction both in the front and the rear’.  Aware the tyres should improve the multiple discipline World Champion continued, ‘I want to wait for the tyres but I think we have to try things on the car.  We need to think what to do for qualifying because the car is too difficult right now.’

Asked about his car Kato said a change of wheel nut improved his car.  Having run large diameter wheels nuts from T-Works he has gone back to the standard kit nuts which has resulted in better traction together with the tyres getting better with mileage.  Switching to his painted body he said now it feels and looks good but admitted the change was minimal and it was more the look that he was benefiting from!  Planning no car changes for Q1, asked if he had good consistency over 5-minutes, the Japanese National Offroad Champion said ‘consistency, this is the problem for me. I can’t make 5-minutes consistent, the problem is me. 3-laps no problem but 5-minute is hard so I need to work on this.’

Asked how he felt seeding had gone, Sawada said he was struggling a bit with understeer.  The 20-year-old plans to remove his side body stiffeners in the hope it will allow the car flex more and improve the steering.  His first time to GDC on the track he said, ‘I like it, it is bigger than what we are used to racing on in Japan’.  Another difference he is having to deal with here is the tyre compound.  Used to running softer compounds at home, he is having to learn how to adapt to the harder tyre and also the fact that it gets better rather than worse with mileage.

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