Greiner is Top Seed in Thailand

Dominic Greiner is the top seed for qualifying at the 1:10 Nitro World Championship in Thailand. The Capricorn posting the fastest time of the day in the fourth & final round of seeding practice.  Ending yesterday’s controlled practice at the top of the time sheets, the German found himself only P9 as the seeding got underway this morning at the challenging RC Addict track.  Improving to fourth in the second round, he would make his mark on the second half of the day topping the remaining two rounds with his fastest 3-consecutive laps of the day in Round 2 giving him the tie-breaker over Tadahiko Sahashi.  Fastest in the opening two rounds, Sahashi lost his edge as the track traction came up, his best 3-laps on his final attempt being 6/10th off that of Greiner.  The most consistent driver of the day, Jilles Groskamp completed the day with the 3rd fastest time and that is where he is seeded for qualifying thanks to his second fastest times in the earlier three runs.  Posting P4 runs in the final two rounds, Mugen’s Shoki Takahata will carry the No.4 in the top heat while a strong final round for Dario Balestri lifted him from 11th to 5th in the final ranking.  An impressive performance from Milan Holthuis sees the young Dutch driver in the top heat as the 6th seed just ahead of reigning champion Naoto Matsukura.

Summing up his performance in the final practice, his closest rival Dario Balestri being 4/10ths off over the 3-laps,  Greiner said, ‘It was like yesterday’s last run, again the car had too little steering but it was still fast and super easy to drive’.  Having changed his car after the final controlled practice in search of more steering that resulted in a car with too much steering in the first seeding run of this morning.  Based on this experience, the former World Champion intends to leave the car unchanged saying, ‘this set-up is good for the first qualifier’.  With the focus now turning to 7-minute runs for qualifying, Greiner believes he has the consistency. With a fuel stop required, he added that choosing the right time to refuel so as to have a clear pit lane would be an important aspect of the qualifying.

Sahashi said for the final practice his car was ‘a little bit difficult’ to drive.  Describing the track as ‘high bit’, he said he had to ‘drive so careful not to flip’.  Finding the morning conditions suiting his car better, the former 1:8 World Champion is confident he will have a good car for Q1, three rounds of qualifying on the timetable for Day 1 of qualifying.

‘It was close with the other guys but my tyres came in later than the others.  I need to work on getting the (handout) tyres more broken in before the start’, said Groskamp about the final practice.  With drivers getting a 4-minute warm-up before the start of their qualifiers, he continued, ‘The pace is good and the car doesn’t flip.  I drove together with Dominic and we have the same speed.  The car and me are consistent, so let’s see what happens tomorrow’.

Being one of a number of drivers to flip off the track during the final seeding round, Takahata replied, ‘so, so’ when asked if he felt ready for qualifying.  The reigning 1:8 World Champion said his MTX-7 is ‘working good’ but admitted it was ‘also easy to flip’.  Feeling the track is the biggest and totally uncontrollable factor here in Bangkok he hopes to be able to use the experience he gained throughout practice to adapt the car to the conditions.

‘Finally and just in time’, was the reaction of a relieved looking Balestri after posting the second fastest time in the concluding round of practice.  He continued, ‘I tried everything and found something’.  Asked what was the biggest thing he improved on the car, he said it was having the right sway bar set-up for the conditions.  ‘The track changes every run. It is not easy to drive here as you are fighting the limits always. It is the most difficult conditions I have experienced’.

Having opened the day with an impressive P3 but then dropped well down the other in Rounds 2 & 3 before coming back with a P7 in the last one, Holthuis explained his mid day slump.  ‘In the second one a screw came out in the gearbox so I have no warm-up and in the third one I had an issue with the engine which is OK now.  The last one there was no problems so I was able to get another good run’.  Asked his approach for qualifying, he said, ‘Just drive steady because a lot of people flip, myself included, I flipped twice on the last one.  It is all about being consistent’.

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Sahashi tops first round of seeding practice

Tadahiko Sahashi has topped the first round of seeding practice at the IFMAR 1:10 Nitro World Championships in Bangkok.  The first of the day’s four seeding rounds threw up a number of surprises as the sun appeared for the final heat of the round leaving a number of the pre race favourites well down the order.  2013 1:8 World Champion Sahashi recorded the fastest 3-consecutive laps with a time of 46.351 seconds followed by his Infinity team-mates Jilles Groskamp and Milan Holthuis.  Shinnosuke Yokoyama added some variety to the top of the times using his Mugen to post fourth fastest ahead of Andy Moore.  For reigning Champion Naoto Matsukura a mistake cost him track time and he was only able to post the 14th fastest time just ahead of team-mate Dario Balestri.  Having been fastest at the end of controlled practice Dominic Greiner found himself only 9th quickest.

Summing up his performance as ‘safe drive’, Sahashi added he got ‘lucky as others had issues’.  Running the car unchanged from yesterday he said today he finds himself looking for more corner speed but cautioned it was a fine balance as too much could make the car easy to flip.

‘Not too bad’ was Groskamp’s reaction with him only 4/100th off his team-mate.  He continued, ‘the track for Group 6 was a little slower so earlier heats got some fast times but overall 2nd is a good start’.  The Dutch driver said the traction this morning was lower than other mornings and based on his experience of the previous days he went with a higher traction set-up but despite this his car was consistent’.

Fellow countryman Holthuis described the first run of the day as ‘really tricky’.  With all drivers now on the official handout tyres, the 19-year-old said his car ‘was sliding around a lot at the beginning’ with the tyres taking a long time to come in.  He explained, ‘the tyre wear is not zero but it is almost nothing’.  Overall pleased with his IF15, he will leave the car unchanged for the start of the second round but plans to adjust the car during the 7-minute run.

Yokoyama was very pleased with his ranking for the round.  The 30-year-old, who works for the iconic Japanese engine manufacturer OS, described his Mugen as being ‘really consistent’ but found himself with a little oversteer this morning.  Planning to change his rear wing for the next round to try cure the oversteer he added, ‘every heat the track conditions change so it is difficult to predict what changes will best suit the track at that time.

‘An OK start for sure’ was how Moore described his run.  With pre race testing ruling him out of IPD, he said based on his track experience and what he observed from watching the drivers in IPD he said what he though would work for controlled practice didn’t’ but today things were better.  Running a more conservative set-up today he said it was maybe not the right direction and he benefited from drivers running after him having a slower run.  The Thailand based British driver said he will ‘test a few things in the next one’ in the hope to improve his true pace.

Explaining his slow time, Matsukura said, ‘I made a mistake and broke a rear body post so I had to stop to fix this.  This cost me track time so my tyres where then too big to get a good time’.  Balestri said the sun made for two extremes on the track.  Where the sun was shining the car had no steering but then shaded areas the car wanted to flip.  The Italian added, ‘we keep trying’.

‘Horrible’ was Greiner’s response when as how his run had gone.  The Capricorn driver said he made an adjustment to his steering but the sun completely changed the track.  Flipping his car in the warm-up he badly chunked a rear tyre which he then had to complete the run.  Looking to the second seeding round the German plans to revert back to a set-up he ran yesterday describing it as a good compromise for the varying conditions.

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