Sparks fly as Coelho takes Q1

Sparks literally flew as Bruno Coelho took the opening round of qualifying with darkness falling on the opening day of the ISTC World Champions. The top seed after practice, the reigning Champion would lead an Xray 1-2 from Alexander Hagberg, no one more surprised than the Swede with his P2 having been seeding the second fastest heat. Finishing off practice with an ever improving performances, Christopher Krapp would set the third fastest time for Yokomo ahead of Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski, another driver running in the slightly less dark second fastest heat. As cars went to the grid there was calls to not run the top heat as drivers complained about being unable to see. Legendary mechanic Masayuki Miura would make a direct call to race officials for the qualifying not to go ahead saying his driver could not see. Unfortunately that driver, Naoto Matsukura, struggled with the lack of light saw him crash out just two corners into the qualifier.

‘The sparks were the best thing we could see’, joked Coelho after his TQ run. Asked about having to qualify in such low light, he said, ‘I have driven in worse conditions in the past but for sure this was not the best lighting’. Topping the times by a massive 6-seconds, he said, ‘this was the first time to see how everyone was on 5-minute pace because of running 2 cars and tyre strategy in the practice. My car was working pretty good and I was really focused on making no mistakes for the 5-minutes’. Asked about tomorrow’s qualifying action he simple replied, ‘It will rain tomorrow’.

A very pleased Hagberg, said, ‘to be honest I was a bit concerned about qualifying because I couldn’t string 3-laps together in practice and because I had to drive conservatively for the tyres I had no idea what to expect over 5-minutes’. The Swede felt the dark conditions meant he ‘drove a little cautious’ but overall it was ‘a really good start to qualifying’ that he had expected. Admitting running in the second fastest heat meant they had a little more light he was more than happy to take the result. Looking to Day 2 of the World Championships, the Swede said, ‘I will wake up tomorrow and see what the sky looks like. It’s outside our control’.

Commenting on his P3 time, Krapp said, ‘I am happy with the position but it could have been 2nd. I lost a place with traffic when Viktor held me up so I missed P2 by 2/10ths. I think Bruno is already away, but it is a strong start for us and now we just wait to see what the weather is tomorrow. Hopefully it is dry because I have nothing prepared for the wet’.

‘Just lucky. It was dark but not as dark as the top heat where a few drivers made mistakes’, was Orlowski’s initial view on Q1. The Polish driver then added, ‘I don’t want to take from our performance as we did improve the car so I am quite happy with P4 in the first one’. He continued, ‘we don’t know what to expect tomorrow so we will play it by ear. I have Andy’s wet car all ready to go and we will use his (wet) experience to our advantage’.

Posting the fifth fastest time, Viktor Wilck described the opening qualifier as ‘very difficult’, adding, ‘the right side of the track you were driving almost just by feeling it was so dark’. The Infinity driver added, ‘all the way in the hairpin you could not see the car. Our heat had the disadvantage of being more dark’. Third fastest of those running in the top heat he said the performance of his car, which features prototype parts here in Gubbio, ‘was still really good’. Keen to build on that for Q2 he said, ‘we see what happens tomorrow in the rain’.

One of three Yokomo’s in the Top 10 for Q1, Nicolas Lee would complete the Top 6. The Singapore driver said, ‘It was really hard to see but anyway the result is good points to start with’. Only 20th fastest in seeding, he explained, ‘we changed a lot (the set-up) during the day and in CP2 we found a good balance which gave me a good car for Q1’. Lee’s team-mate Yannic Prümper would set the 8th fastest time.

Setting the 7th fastest time and separating the two Yokomos, Jilles Groskamp was happy to take the result giving the difficult lighting. The former World Champ said, ‘It was just too dark and I had too many small mistake’. The Infinity driver added, ‘the end of the straight was just a guess and I had a few rough laps there. The pace was really good but the conditions just made it so difficult to be consistent.

Top Qualifier at the last World Championship in South Africa 4 years ago, Ronald Volker would finish Q1 in 10th behind young Slovakian Xray driver Matus Benetin. The Mugen driver was on a Top 3 run but spun putting his hand up and admitting it was a driver error as it took place on the brightest section of the track.