Rain halts final practice at 1:10 World Championship
Rain halted the final round of practice at the 1:10 200mm World Championship in Florida. A heavy shower stopped proceedings at Homestead RC Raceway half way through what was to be the drivers fourth practice of the second official day of the event. Having also ran 4 rounds of practice yesterday, officially it is Mugen’s Robert Pietsch who has produced the fastest time of practice ahead of reigning World Champion Dominic Greiner and Jesse Davis. With overnight rain washing away traction built up during the International Practice Days and yesterday’s first round of official practice, today’s times were slower. After respraying the track with sugar water this morning it was Greiner who was fastest in the first round from 200mm rookie Naoto Matsukura. The Japanese driver went to the top in the next round ahead of team-mate Tadahiko Sahashi while what was to become the last run of the day for the leading drivers produced an Infinity 1-2-3 led by Lamberto Collari from Matsukura and Sahashi with Greiner fourth. For the day it was Matsukura’s FP6 time that was the fastest of the day registering a 53.890-seconds 3-consecutive lap time compared Pietsch’s 53.668 from the previous day’s rocket round FP4.
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Simon Kurzbuch will defend his Euro Nitro Series title tomorrow at the Season Finale in Italy from pole position. The Shepherd driver made it a clean sweep of qualifying for the 2018 season as he wrapped up his fourth TQ from the championship’s four races. Having suffered a broken front belt in Q3 and title rival Dario Balestri getting the TQ for that round, Kurzbuch had to wait until the final round to bag himself the extra championship point which could prove vital at the end of tomorrow’s 45-minute final. He took the final qualifier ahead of Robert Pietsch and Toni Gruber after a hard pushing Balestri had a mistake in the second half of the qualifier. The Italian will start 2nd with Pietsch third while Andrea Pirani makes it four different manufacturers at the head of the grid. Kurzbuch’s TQ today eliminates Gruber from the title fight, the WRC driver at best being able to equal the leaders points tally with a win but losing out on the tie break. Between himself and Balestri, however, if the Italian wins he must be sure to finish on the podium with a 3rd place giving him his 3rd consecutive title on tie break with the only driver who has previously denied him becoming champion.
