Rheinard holds overnight TQ at 1:12 Worlds

With Day 1 of qualifying complete at the 1:12 World Championship, it is defending World Champion Marc Rheinard who holds the overnight TQ in Florida.  The Awesomatix driver wrapped up the day’s action at Beachline Raceway with by backing up his Q2 performance with a second TQ run in the third round.  Having taken Q1, Michal Orlowski was looking on target for repeat performance until he bounced his Schumacher off the boards promoting Rheinard to the top of the timing screens.  A strong recovery that even Rheinard admitted caught him off guard, would see the Pole getting to within 0.493 of a second by the end of the 8-minutes.  Overall the Polish ace holds second in the qualification points ahead of Kemp Anderson and Alexander Hagberg.  Hagberg would end the day with his best performance setting the 3rd fastest time and together with his two P4 runs from earlier, the former World Champion gets promoted up to the top heat grouping for Day 2 of qualifying.

While claiming another TQ run and pleased to be holding the overnight TQ, Rheinard again wasn’t happy with his own performance.  Chasing a third title in 1:12 to go with his 3 Electric Touring Car World titles, on Q3 the German said, ‘It was a horrible start.  I hit the curbs and went into the wall.  I was thinking ‘what are you doing’ and then it took me 3-4 laps before I got into my rhythm because I was pissed’.  Having heard the impact of Orlowski’s crash that handed him the lead just inside the half way point of the qualifier, he said he never expected him to recover so fast explaining, ‘I was in comfort mode and just trying to control the race to the end without any more mistakes.  When I heard he had close the gap to 1.3-second I went ‘Oh shit, and had to push again’.  Asked about his bad starts in Q2 & 3, Rheinard said he needs to look at his warm-up laps.  He said, ‘I am not even doing one lap so maybe I need to do another lap to get the tyres in the groove.  Michal does one really fast lap and a slow lap but I need to check my run time’.  Asked if run time is an issue he replied, ‘It seems ok but it’s kind of close’ adding, ‘when it goes it doesn’t slow down it just completely stops’.

Despite his mistake, Orlowski said, ‘I was happy to be so close to him in the end’.  Finishing 0.493 behind after losing 1.6-seconds on his tap out on lap 25, he said, ‘I pushed as hard as I could to catch Marc but the car was a little loose on one side after the crash’.  Asked about the crash, the impact echoing around the Beachline Raceway indoor venue, the 2020 World Championship Top Qualifier said, ‘I had a good lead but made a mistake at the chicane.  It’s a part of the track that is difficult for all of us’.  Looking to Day 2 of qualifying, 3 more rounds to be completed, Orlowski feels, ‘we need to find a little more to beat Marc’.

His best run in terms of ranking but a slower time than his opening qualifier, Hagberg said, ‘problems with traffic cost me time’.  He added, ‘the first two minutes were good but when Donny (Lia) crashed and I lost my concentration’.  Having made huge progress in Q2 posting a P3 Lia’s crash was one of the loudest of the day.  With the traffic and loss of concentration, on his lack of pace Hagberg said, ‘I don’t know if it was my driving or the car but we will look at something to get the car to maintain better pace to the end (of the heat)’.  On a positive the 8-time European Champion said, ‘I’m in the top heat tomorrow so don’t have to worry about traffic’.

Fourth fastest Kemp Anderson rounded out the day with a P4 run after a third in Q1 and second in Q2.  The leading US challenger here at the 21st running of the 1:12 Worlds said, ‘I’m happy to be sitting 3rd overall right now, we have 3 more goes to try and move up’.  On his Q3 performance he said, ‘The car was alright, it felt like it did in Q1 but I had a few driving errors.  We will work in the car and find more speed’.  Asked where he hoped to get the extra pace from he said, ‘It’s a little pushy still so we’ll try to get more steering but its a balance to keep the stability and not make the car more hard to drive’.

A multiple 1:12 Worlds finalist and finalists at last year’s Touring Car World Championship in Italy, Hayato Ishioka finally showed some form in the final qualifying.  Getting a fifth for the round, the Roche driver said they improved the car step by step over the day and much improve traction in Q3 has the Japanese driver feeling confident of a better Day 2 of qualifying.  Holding P7 overnight, he said they have found a good direction with the set-up today and that was reflected by his fastest lap of the day coming in Q3.

View our event image gallery here.

Rheinard TQ’s second round in Florida

Awesomatix’s Marc Rheinard has TQ’d the second round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championship at Beachline Raceway, the defending Champion benefitting from mistakes by Q1 winner Michal Orlowski and the rapid Kemp Anderson.  While Anderson would recover to get a second for the round, albeit a lap down on his team-mate, Orlowski ended up with a 5th, a score he’ll be hoping to drop over the remaining 4 qualifiers.  Running in the second fastest heat, Donny Lia made it a 1,2,3 for Awesomatix finishing ahead of Alexander Hagberg.  The third place qualifier at the 2014 Worlds, which also took place in Florida, 1:12 specialist Lia had been chasing leader Hagberg in the same heat until the Xray driver crashed in the final half minute of the qualifier.  The ‘stupid mistake’ cost the former World Champ a potential P3 and instead he matched his opening result of a fourth.

‘A TQ is a TQ but I’m not happy with my driving’, was Rheinard’s reaction to his TQ run.  The German continued, ‘It was a horrible start and I hit the curbs everywhere which caused me to chuck a tyre.  When the others crashed I tried to keep it on the track but I knew Donny (Lia) had a good time from his heat.  In the end the result was good but I wasn’t fast and my driving was not good.’

Despite traffic costing him a potential TQ run, Kemp was ‘happy with P2’.  The American said, ‘The car was good.  We made a few small changes and it was good through the whole run but I got blocked by lapped traffic and bounced off the wall’.  Looking to the third & final of today’s qualifiers, and knowing the speed is there he plans to ‘throw (the car) back down how it is and see how it goes because ‘I am pretty happy with it and just need a clean run’.

‘Definitely getting closer’ was Lia’s reaction to his second qualifying attempt.  The owner of the 360v2 track in New York, Lia said having struggled yesterday it was great to be able to rebound and he feels now with a clean run he could do something.  Asked why he was so far off the pace, he said the carpet and the grip threw him.  He continued, ‘I only race this class.  The other guys race many classes so it takes me longer to adapt to changes.  I’m used to super high grip and a different version of carpet.  It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and I am older too’.

Clearly frustrated with himself for his mistake, Hagberg said, ‘I crashed with no reason to.  I had a good lead so there was no reason to make such a stupid mistake’.  The former World Champion continued, ‘the car was again better than before’ and says the plan for the last of today’s qualifiers is to ‘run it the same and try to make no silly mistakes’.

Another to have costly mistakes, Orlowski said, ‘The car was awesome at the beginning but then I was in traffic and got a little annoyed because I felt I was loosing time trying to get by.  I lost concentration and then made mistakes’.  Having made a change to his Schumacher for the second round, he felt it was not a good change in terms of the full 8-minute run and they will look at changing it again for Q3.

View our event image gallery here.

Orlowski takes opening 1:12 Worlds qualifier

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has taken the opening round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championships in Florida.  Top Qualifier at the last running of the Worlds in 2020, he would TQ the first of the 6 rounds at Beachline Raceway by 0.25 of a second from Top Seed & defending Champion Marc Rheinard.  A very closely contested 8-minute qualifier, Rheinard’s Awesomatix team-mate Kemp Anderson was right in the mix.  Posting the fastest lap of the round, the American was laying down the TQ pace before dropping off the top spot with a bad lap and eventually completing the Top 3.  Running in the second fastest heat having nor featured in seeding yesterday, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg took a confidence boosting P4 for the round ahead of the Awesomatix of Sam Isaacs and Snowbirds podium finisher Donny Lia.

Asked about his opening effort Orlowski replied, ‘I had a terrible start’.  The Polish racer explained, ‘we tried something in the car after practice because we had understeer at the end of the run.  The change made the car more aggressive so it was sketchy at the beginning.  I could live with it but just needed time to get used to it’.  He continued, ‘mid race I started to go very good and caught Marc.  We were both pushing a lot and we both had bobbles.  There is room for improvement in the car but it’s good to get a TQ from Q1’.

‘A solid start’ was how Rheinard summed the first qualifier.  Switching back from his trademark colour scheme painted bodyshell he ran in final controlled practice yesterday, to a pink one-colour body, he said that was down to his discovering a 6.5gram weight difference between the two.  While the same model of body, he said different batches seem to have different weights, adding ‘6.5grams on a body that weighs just 22 grams is a lot’.  Suffering a ‘shitty jump at the chicane’ that cost him a few tenths,  he said his car ‘missed a bot of steering’ something he put down to the gluing of his front tyres explaining, ‘I used more glue so I will try using a little less the next one’.

With Kemp’s sheer pace impressing many onlookers, the American summed up the qualifier as ‘pretty good’.  He said, ‘the car was hard to drive in practice this morning so we had to calm down the front end for Q1 but it was a little too much’.  The 21-year-old continued, ‘It started to push at the end so we need to find the good medium for the next one’.

‘Not bad.  It was another run I was more comfortable with the car’, was the response of a more upbeat Hagberg when asked about Q1.  The 2018 World Champion continued, ‘every run I am getting more comfortable and changes we made after yesterday have helped to close the gap.  It is still not enough for Top 3 but the car is getting there and is feeling a lot better today.  It’s a very positive start and now we will try to do more changes in the same direction.’

Isaacs was pleased with his opening P5 effort saying, ‘the car was a lot more drivable that one so I could run a clean 8-minutes but once you get out of your rhythm it’s hard to get back into it.  It was a decent run but I need a little more speed’.  Asked what he planned to change for this, he replied , ‘I will try heavier dampening and take out camber.  I just needs a few small changes’.

In the opening Spec Class qualifier, it was Awesomatix’s Max Machler who took the TQ for the round.  Despite a crash during the heat, the Awesomatix driver had an 8/10ths advantage over Joe Trandell with Dave Vera third, both drivers running in the second fastest of the 6 heat groups.

View our event image gallery here.