Another TQ run as Ripoll take Q4 just ahead of Catanzani
Xray’s Maxime Ripoll has become the first driver to repeat a TQ run at the IFMAR 1:8 Onroad World Championship, the French talent opening Day 2 of qualifying in Chile with the fastest time for the fourth round ahead of Andrea Catanzani and Toni Gruber, the trio the only drivers who can now take the overall TQ honours. A slightly warmer morning that yesterday in Santiago, Ripol would break 23-laps for the first time over the 7-minutes bettering Catanzani’s Q1 time by over a second, something that could prove key in deciding the Top Qualifier with the second two runs of the day normally proving slower. With Ripoll’s advantage over Catazani’s Serpent 0.233 of a second, while he set the fastest lap for the round, it is his father’s performance in the pit lane that is the big talking point among his rivals, Team Ripoll making up over a second on refuelling. Behind Gruber’s Capricorn, it was the two factory Mugen Seiki’s of Simon Kurzbuch and Shoki Takahata who completed the Top 5. The two former World Champions said afterwards they just lacked pace this round, Kurzbuch reacting with, ‘Only 5th, I don’t know how to find the speed’, the Swiss driver adding they are going to have to try something different for Q5.
