Paloschi denies Hamon in penultimate seeding round

An impressive run in the third & penultimate round of seeding practice by Serpent’s Gabriele Paloschi has denied team-mate Jeff Hamon from securing an early top seed status at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Australia this evening.  Running a heat earlier than the championship’s title favourites, Paloschi’s impressive time went pretty much unnoticed as Hamon went on to top the final heat of the round from Toni Gruber, which the Aussie and almost everyone else thought had secured him the top seed spot for qualifying.  Running his three laps in 55.844, European Championship podium finisher Paloschi had ran his in 55.821.  With the second round of seeding a repeat of the opening run, Hamon from Andrea Catanzani and Xray’s Natanaele Senesi, Paloschi topping the third round moves him up to third in Serpent lockout of the top 3 going into the final seeding run in the morning.

Having opened seeding with a P9 and followed that up with a P6, Paloschi was somewhat surprised with his zero points haul for round three.  Running an identical Gimar/Serpent chassis and engine combo to both Hamon and Catanzani, the 20-year-old said, ‘that time the car was really nice. It was difficult in the first round but step by step we improve it and in the cold conditions of the last one it was really good.  We see tomorrow how the car is in hot conditions.’  Asked about his pace over a full run rather than just 3-laps, he replied, ‘I am not known as the guy for the fast laps but over 7-minutes I feel comfortable.’

Asked about his run Hamon joked, ‘It was good until I found out I’m not top seed’.  He continued, ‘No it’s fine, he’s my team-mate so it’s all good’.  Having run the previous seeding round with a mission of warm-up, 3-laps, and done, the Worlds Warm-up Race winner said, ‘that was a long run simulation which was positive and I think we are in a good position going into tomorrow’.  Asked if run time was a concern, he said, ‘It’s borderline for a lot of people and especially when its hotter out.  There are going to be a lot of people driving to a number rather than flat out’.

Another driver using the cooler conditions to check his status over 7-minute was Gruber who holds P5 in the over night seeding behind Senesi.  The European 1:10 Nitro Touring Car Champion explained, ‘we changed the manifold for that one to work on our 7-minute run time but it took a lot of work to get the engine set.  I pitted maybe 5 or 6 times and it was still too rich which that meant the gearbox shifted too late.  In the end it was OK, not perfect but still good.’  With Hong Nor’s owners and engineer arriving trackside in Sydney today, the German is confident ‘all is working well’ admitting ‘we are not faster than Jeff at the moment’ but also highlighting ‘he saved a lot with tyres in the first two rounds so for sure had better tyres for the last one but we are on a good way now and we see tomorrow how everything is.’

Rounding out the 6 in seeding with one run to go, Paolo Morganti is finding himself doing a lot of head scratching in terms of how to make set-up changes to his IGT8 chassis.  Ending the day as he opened it with another fourth fastest time, he described track conditions as ‘Disney on Ice’.  Making a front sway bar change after the first round he said the small change dramatically changed the car for the worse but then making a major change for the last run it made little or no difference.  For tomorrow, he plans to revert to the best of the set-ups he ran yesterday in controlled practice.

Catanzani just pipped by Hamon in first seeding round

Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani looked like giving us a new name at the top of the timing sheets at 1:8 GT World Championship as seeding got underway in Australia but with just seconds to go team-mate Jeff Hamon somehow managed to recover from a problematic start to the run to snatch it from the young Italian.  A run that would see a number of drivers in the top heat experience issues,  Catanzani was the first driver to break into the 54-seconds for his 3-consecutive laps and looking to save tyres was already down off the rostrum just after half way through the 10-minutes run with his time looking strong enough to hold.  Having set the pace yesterday, Hamon was also off the driver stand but for different reasons as he suffered brake problems.  Considering abandoning the run, with just enough time to make an attempt at 3-laps after fixing his breaks the Aussie pulled it off pipping Catanzani by 0.094 of a second. Having finished out yesterday’s controlled practice with some promising runs, Natanaele Senesi carried that form into seeding opening his account with a P3 for the first of the four rounds ahead of Paolo Morganti and Toni Gruber.

Asked about his issues that saw him spend over 3-minutes in the pits once his car had been marshalled, Hamon explained, ‘My brakes were not correct so I fixed the problem but I over fixed it and the brakes locked on’.  Coming off the driver standing and fixing the problem himself, he said, ‘the plan was to do 2-minutes warm-up, 3-laps and come in so when I had the problem I was just going to abandon it but I had just enough time for a go at it and a pretty clear track because a lot of the others had come in already to save tyres.  It paid off’.  With tyres a big talking point yesterday, Hamon said the decision to call an team-managers meeting this morning and agree all racers will get a fifth set of the PMT handout tyres was ‘way better’.  He added, ‘It is good for the event as drivers now need to worry less about tyre management and go after times’.

Sixth fastest in controlled practice, European Championship Top Qualifier Catanzani summed up the first seeding practice with ‘now its good’.  He continued, ‘the car is a little difficult to drive but it fast as well’.  Asked about coming in early, he said this was to save tyres and explaining he plans to do today’s three seeding rounds on the one set of tyres.  Looking to the second run, he said while ‘fast is good’ he will make a small down stop change to his Gimar powered Serpent to try make it ‘a little easier to drive’.

Pleased with his first seeding attempt, drivers’ two best point scores from the four rounds determining the heats for qualifying, Senesi described his Xray as ‘better’ after adjusting the diffs.  Going to a lower oil he said the biggest change was to come from the change of bodyshell he made.  Having switched between the Blitz P5 and P6 yesterday, he ran the TSP Racing Zonda GT today calling it ‘a huge difference’.  He explained, ‘it makes the car more stable in the rear and on the sweeper its more stable in the steering’.  Highlighting the difference in him going from 18.5 to 18.2 lap times, he feels his 3rd for the round could have been better as he had one mistake on his 3-laps.

‘Not bad for an old man’, was how Morganti summed up his P4 time.  The iGT8 owner continued, ‘It was a decent run but I lost a little balance and the car now over rotates.  It was like driving a modified electric, you need to be so precise with the throttle’.  Running new tyres, he said ‘re-run tyres’ after the head cycle fade and he will make a small change for that and to make the car a little easier to drive.

Like Hamon, another driver to have car issues was Gruber.  A loose screw in his steering linkage lost the German a lot of warm-up time which in turn lead to his engine not being set right for the run.  Running rich, this then caused a late shift to second gear but the Hong Nor driver was happy the screw came loose so early when he was only warming up the car saying if it had happened when he was up to speed it could have been a lot worse and his car would have for sure been in the fence.  Despite his engine set-up being off, he said to be only 4/10th off Hamon he is feeling positive for the next one.

Hamon tops final controlled practice ‘Down Under’

Controlled practice concluded at the 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney this evening with Jeff Hamon setting the fastest time for the 6th & final round.  Despite everyone, including Hamon himself, expecting it to be the rocket round of the day, the Serpent driver was unable to better his time from the morning’s opening practice.  Over his best 3-consecutive laps the Aussie was almost half a second off his morning’s 53.981 pace around the John Grant International Raceway.  With a cool morning turning to 30+ degrees heat when the sun reached its peak in the middle of the day, the 6pm timing of the final practice in theory was going to present racers with the ideal track conditions for quicker times.  With drivers pushing hard in the evening to improve on their times, the majority failed, with the only drivers in the Top 10 to achieve that being Natanaele Senesi and Peter Jovanovic.  Xray’s Senesi surprised himself with the third fastest time for the final round in between Gruber and defending Champion Joern Neumann.

Switching back to a standard chassis on his car for the final run, Hamon described it as ‘better’ but added ‘now I am looking to finesse what I have got with minor changes to things like droop and camber’.  He continued, ‘that should have been rocket round but no one went faster’.  Despite the slower track, Hamon’s advantage over his rivals was substantial with Gruber almost 6/10th off and he admitted that given how the track felt to drive he ‘wasn’t expecting the lap times I was getting’ also admitting he was pushing hard for a long run simulation.

Pleased with his run in the hottest part of the day when he was set the pace for CP4, after the final run Gruber said, ‘Now it is not so good’.  The European 1:10 Nitro Onroad Champion explained, ‘the track temperature is a problem for us.  We are still looking for more steering when the track is a little cooler.  When it’s warmer we have the steering we need and I was quicker than Jeff but now like in the morning I’m slower than him’.  Admitting the biggest issue he has is his lack of experience with the GT car and knowing what to do to improve the car for certain conditions.  Concluding on a positive note he said, ‘at least the final takes place at the time of day our car works best.’

Asked about his day, Sensei replied, ‘the whole day it has not been going good in nitro’.  The 24-year-old, who is also running in the non championship eGT support class and is very happy with that car, explained ‘when we make changes to the car nothing changes and I think the issue is the rear tyre compound.  In electric the tyre works perfect but I think that is due to the extra weight and aggressive power of the  electric car.  I need more flex as I lack overall rear grip but chassis and spring changes are making no difference.  For tomorrow I will make the car exactly the same as my electric including adding more weight to see if that helps it to work the tyres better’.

Neumann said they made adjustments to his Sworkz by running less rear toe-in and switching from Blitz’s GT6 to GT5 body shell based on how they expected the track would be. ‘I thought it would be very grippy but it was loose.  The car wasn’t so good,’  One concern the Offroad ace has based on today’s track time is the level of tyre wear, the front left on my most cars clear looking to be doing a lot of the work.  With drivers allowed just four sets of tyres,  Neumann pointed out that one of those will be required for the Semi Finals with only the Main final starters allowed an additional set of the controlled PMT rubber tyres.