Chassis: Serpent SRX8 GT R
Engine: Gimar Jupiter GT
Radio: Sanwa Exzes III
Servos (Steering/Throttle): Sanwa PGS XB2
Body: Genius GTFury
Tires (handout): Sweep D-SPEC GT 40
Fuel (handout): Energy 16%
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Chassis: Senesi Motorsport S21 GT
Engine: Gimar Jupiter ‘Senesi Edition’ with Gimar 2209 Pipe and Gimar Ultrapower Manifold
Radio: Sanwa M17S
Servos (Steering/Throttle): Savox SB-3292SG
Body: Genius GT Fury
Tires (handout): Sweep D-SPEC GT 40
Fuel (handout): Energy 16%
Notes:
Natanaele’s S21 GT is built using a T-Works titanium screw set and is also fitted with the aftermarket & accessories manufacturer’s turnbuckles, brass weights and steel driveshafts.
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Raptor’s Alessio Mazzeo remains in the hunt for the overall TQ at the 1:8 GT World Championships in Chile, the Italian delivering his second TQ run in the fifth & penultimate round of qualifying this morning. With fog delaying the start of Day 2 of qualifying at the Club de Aeromodelos de Chile track by an hour, once the action got underway the sun would come out in force. While it was overnight TQ holder Andrea Catanzani who set the initial TQ pace for the first 6-laps, once Mazzeo’s tyres came in the 33-year-old took charge of proceedings. With Catanzani’s Serpent losing pace in the later part of the run, setting the fastest lap Mazzeo would take the all important TQ by 1.6 seconds forcing the battle to become the Top Qualifier to go to the sixth & final round. While always saying his car worked better in the hotter conditions unfortunately today noticeable increase in temperatures could hamper Mazzeo quest for the overall TQ honours as he needs another TQ run to match Catanzani but needs to do it in the fastest time to deny his fellow Italian the top spot. Catanzani’s Q4 run from yesterday is the fastest so far and Mazzeo’s latest TQ run was some 4-seconds shy of the pace needed. While all the attention was on the Mazzeo/Catanzani battle, behind them it would be Natanaele Senesi who completed the Top 3 after Alex D’Angelo’s Capricorn ran out of fuel on the last lap.
Pleased at having forced the TQ battle to go all the way, on his Q5 performance Mazzeo said, ‘The first laps the car was super loose because we started with new tyres and the track was cold so it was hard to remove the mold line off the tyres. For 5-6 laps Andrea was in front because he start super fast but step by step I recovered the gap. At the end I have a big gap so I take no risk to arrive at the end with a TQ.’ He continued, ‘now I need one more and the fastest one. This will be hard because the perfect track was yesterday. Yesterday I could do 7.08 but today that will be super hard but we have nothing to lose. Andrea for sure will go also super fast like everytime so it will be a nice fight. We are happy because we fight, we are at the level to fight for the final which is the most important thing but for sure we will try to claim the TQ.’
With Catanzani struggling to explain why he is experiencing the drop off in performance, summing up Q5 the 20-year-old said, ‘The start was good and we had a good advantage on Alessio but then the second part of the quali we lost it all but I don’t know why. The car works well at the start but we have to understand why our lap times fall off after 3-4 minutes.’ Asked what the feeling of the car was like when it started to drop off the pace, the 2023 World Championship podium finisher said, ‘It’s like less steering and maybe also it loses a bit of power so we need to look at making changes for the last one to try and solve this.’
On his P3 run, Senesi said, ‘We made a few changes to the car just to see if super used tyres would work so we went with a thinner rear sway bar, super thin, and I think it gained a little bit more traction because we were on 5th run tyres and I was there with guys on new sets. Alex was on new tyres and also the first two were on new tyres.’ He continued, ‘My benchmark now was Alex and I was there with him. At the end I was able to finish the heat and he ran out of fuel so I got third place.’ For the final qualifier, the 2024 European Champion said they will first make a calculation that the are straight into the final in the first four ‘and then we are going to use the new set cause we still have one. We are going to use it just to break it in so that if we have to change a tyre in the final then we have them already broken in.’ Drivers each had 3-sets of the Sweep controlled tyre for the event starting with controlled practice. If a drivers end up doing two finals, so bumps from the Semi to the Main, they will then be allowed a fourth set.
Chassis: IGT8 SYM
Engine: RS Tuned
Radio: Sanwa M17
Servos (Steering/Throttle): KO Propo Grasper
Body: Genius GT Fury
Tires (handout): Sweep D-SPEC GT 40
Fuel (handout): Energy 16%
Notes:
Diego’s SYM is fitted with T-Works brake disks and a titanium screw set from Avid.
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In contention for the overall TQ in the established IFMAR 1:8 GT Nitro World Championship, Raptor’s Alessio Mazzeo leads the way in the inaugural Electric GT World title race which is also running in Chile. While just 10-drivers make up the entry list for the quieter class, it is again proving to be an all Italian battle at the front. EFRA’s inaugural eGT European Champion back in 2023, Mazzeo would post three TQ runs today with the only other driver to top a round being Natanaele Senesi when he took Q3. Behind them it is Capricorn’s Alex D’Angelo who sits third in the overnight ranking. With the final two qualifiers set to run tomorrow, potentially Senesi still has a shot at becoming the Top Qualifier in Santiago but he’ll need the perfect day to deny Mazzeo the TQ starting position.
Giving his reaction to Day 1 of eGT qualifying Mazzeo called it a, ‘A very good day’, adding , ‘we just had bad luck the third quali that I made a small mistake and broke the car. It was the last two laps and I lost a bit the focus on the race. It was my fault 100%.’ Explaining what happened, he said, ‘I crashed it alone, a super slow crash but the steering was on full lock so when I crashed it broke.’ Asked how he finds switching between the two categories, the fastest nitro heat immediately followed by the electric GT heat, he said, ‘the first laps are difficult because with the electric you have to break early, sooner. So the first few laps they feel super long.’ While the Raptor electric car is 300 grams heavier than the nitro version, he said the problem is actually the power. He highlighted, ‘with electric you make almost 120kph on the straight, with Nitro it is just 90kph so you see why I have to change a bit in the set-up.’
Speaking about his qualifying Senesi said, ‘Q1 we made P2 behind Alessio and also in Q2 but in Q3 we TQ’d because Alessio had a small problem.’ He continued, ‘We actually ran out of batteries in that one (Q3) but luckily D’Angelo did not close and we stayed in first place. So after that we made a few changes with speedo settings for Q4, it was a little bit slower but in the end we were able to make the 7-minutes.’ Asked if run time was a fine line in the opening two qualifiers, Senesi replied, ‘No, in the first two the power was super good but it became warmer so it heated the batteries too much and they went out of temperature range so it is always difficult to find a balance with these changing conditions.’ He added, ‘Overall we have P2 and we can maybe still shot for the TQ tomorrow because there are still two rounds. Alessio has 3 TQs, I have 1, so technically it can be. The strategy there is to start with used tyres in the final and only have one new set’. With three 7-minute finals awaiting the field, Senesi believes the lack of a warm-up in the finals will challenge drivers as they now only get one warm-up lap. A GT specialist, asked about switching between nitro GT to electric GT, he said for his driving style it’s very difficult because he likes ‘to push a lot into the corner, braking & turning at the same time, and in nitro this is more easy to do. In electric you have a lot of power and you should run like a touring car, so more attached to the corner and more easy while cornering.’
Asked how his eGT efforts had gone so far, D’Angelo replied, ‘We didn’t put too much attention into the class because I have no mechanic and we have to choose the one to do better in (that focus being nitro).’ On his car’s performance he said, ‘I have a little bit of understeer but overall it is not that bad but of course I am not the fastest on the grid.’ A self confessed nitro guy, asked how he felt driving the two different cars compared, he said, ‘because of the extra weight of the electric car you have to be more round on the corner. You can not stop, turn, and go on the gas. Also the brake feeling is a lot different because one is a normal brake and the other has a lot more brake.’ He finished up by saying, ‘let’s see for tomorrow, we are improving step by step. We should need two more days for this one (eGT) but we don’t have it but lets see the three finals, anything can happen.’
With the 3rd running of the IFMAR 1:8 GT World Championships taking place in Chile, it is Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani who leads the way after 4 rounds of qualifying to hold the overnight TQ in Santiago. A driver who came to international prominence at the previous GT Worlds two years ago in Sydney, Australia, after a stressful start to the Day 1 of qualifying when he was briefly disqualified from Q1 this morning, the Italian has since taken charge of proceedings. With a TQ run in Q2, he backed that up with another two TQ runs in rounds 3 & 4 of six although he admitted that Q1 winner Alessio Mazzeo had found something on his Raptor set-up. He also felt his rival would have most like have TQ’d had it not been for another car spinning in of him and resulting in unavoidable contact and 2-seconds lost. The gap at the end of the 7-minutes only just 6/10ths of a second with Natanaele Senesi completing the Top 3 behind Mazzeo. Venezuela’s Diego Morganti capped off his day with his best showing yet to post the 4th fastest time, the best performance we seen so far from any non-Italian driver.
Summing up Q4 with ‘it was OK’, Catanzani added, ‘it was maybe not so fast because Alessio was super fast. I think he was a little bit quicker that one but touched with someone else and that helped me get the TQ.’ He continued, ‘for sure tomorrow we will have a good battle for the overall TQ so this evening we will think about what to change to get a little bit more speed.’ Asked how his car was for the last run, the new crowned Italian National Champion said, ‘It was better, more consistent, and more easy to drive but also faster but we still have to make it a little bit more fast.’
‘Super bad luck because I think our pace was fast enough to TQ that one’, was Mazzeo’s reaction after Q4. He continued, ‘(Elias) Flavio was angry with himself but it’s no problem because it was not his fault, it just was windy and no grip the first laps so it’s something that can happen’ – the Brazil racer spinning in front of and being collected by Mazzeo’s car. He added, ‘Flavio is a super nice guy, I have zero problems with him but obviously I was angry because we deserved to take the TQ for a second time today but congrats to Andrea.’ Asked if he had found something to give him the new found speed, his fastest lap of Q4 the fastest lap of the day, he replied, ‘yes we found something’ but he wasn’t going into any more details other than to say it wasn’t a big change but it ‘made a big difference.’ Still in the hunt for the overall TQ, but needing to take both remaining rounds, the 33-year-old said, ‘we are confident for tomorrow and we will try to do our best. The TQ is still open so it’s still on but it would have been better to have two rounds each. Andrea is super fast and they work really well so they deserve to be in this place.’
Asked how his final qualifying attempt of the day was, Senesi replied, ‘It wasn’t bad actually. It is always difficult to match the pace of the first two guys because they are super fast so right now for me and I think the others the race is to be in the Top 4. I’m pretty happy we made another P3 so overnight we are P4 but I think for sure tomorrow we can show another good run.’ On his car, the Senesi Motorsport S21GT based on an Xray with his own sell engineer conversion kit, the former Italian and European Champion said, ‘it seems the car is working very good with used tyres so I am happy about that and overall it feels good to drive.’
‘Very very good’, that was how Morganti summed up his P4 run. With this marking his first IFMAR World Championships, the son of well known nitro onroad racer and IGT8 owner Paolo Morganti said while the focus has been on making run time that was ‘definitely the best run of the day.’ Running out of fuel right before the finish line in the previous round, he said overall its been a pretty consistent day for him and he is feeling confident he can improve on some of his earlier runs tomorrow. Rounding out his 20th year here at these World Championships, Monday being his 21st birthday, this is his second time to the CACH track which he described as ‘awesome’.
Holding third in the overnight rankings, 2023 Top Qualifier Alex D’Angelo would suffer problems in the last round of the day. The Capricorn driver, having enjoyed his best run in Q3, suffered an issue with a driveshaft in the warm-up and missed the start but wanting to check the changes he made to the car they fixed it to get him back on track but he said he couldn’t properly feel the effects of the changes because the issue resurfaced again leading the Italian to call Q4 a ‘failure’.