It’s been a pretty interesting couple of days as qualifying wrapped up, and we got through the first day of lower finals. I have some thoughts, but first, apologies for missing yesterday. It’s been a big week in our family, and some things are more important than R/C. Hard to believe, but true!

But here we are, heading into Saturday. In one sense, the race is almost over. Two years of waiting. 6 days of on-track action. All that anticipation. It’s nearly done.

But in another sense, there is still so much left to go. If we put practice aside, the race has included 80 minutes of on-track action so far – 2 seeding heats and 6 qualifying heats at 10 minutes each. Before this race is decided, there’s still another 90 minutes (or more if we include the LCQ) to go. By that metric, we’re not even half-way through the event yet. We’re just getting to the good stuff.

As we prep for Saturday, championship day, I have been thinking about two things.

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THE SPEED

First, I want to take you back to the event preview we wrote a couple of weeks ago. In among the 15000 words, we said this:

“What does it take to win? First, it takes outright speed: seed well over three consecutive laps so you’re in a good qualifying group, qualify well over multiple 10-minute runs so you start up front in a semi-final, race that 30-minute semi fast enough to start the one-hour main near the front – and then be the fastest of everybody over that 60 minutes. Speed is essential, over three laps, over 10 minutes, over 30 minutes and over an hour. Not everybody can be fast over all those different race lengths.”

That’s what I’m thinking about today. We’ve found out who could seed fast over three laps. And we’ve found out who could run fast over 10 minutes. Though some were fast over both those lengths, they were not completely the same set of names. We are still yet to have any real certainty about who will be fast over 30 minutes, nor who will be fast when we double that for the 60-minute World Championship final.

Of course there are some clues. There are the drivers whose cars are working beautifully, and who have persistently, consistently been running up front: Mason Fuller, David Ronnefalk and Chase Lemieux stand alone in that category. And there are others who’ve been fast at times, but struggled a little for that consistent front-running pace, or where mistakes have crept in at times: Canas, Ongaro, Rivkin, Maifield. And yet more who have yet really to demonstrate the kind of pace that could have them be a factor in the long run – Dakotah Phend, bulging disc and all, is the stand-out in this category.

But will Fuller and Ronnefalk, so fast over 10 minutes, still be there over 30 and 60? Will Ongaro, seemingly not quite there on the tyre side over 10 minutes, find that pace over 60? Will Maifield, the racer’s racer, move forward? Will the 1/10 specialists, like Lemieux and Rivkin and Kaerup hold it together for the long runs, avoiding mistakes? Will that fuel-mileage disparity that’s been such a talking point over qualifying come home to roost? Will 60-minute tyre life and tyre performance impact the pecking order? And what of the mindset, of what it takes to really step up when a championship is on the line?

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THE MINDSET

And this brings me to the second thing I’ve been thinking about. The champion’s mindset. The winning mindset. There’s some fascinating character studies at play here, and I so wish I was there in person to see the faces, to listen to the conversations, to observe the body language at play.

Fuller, the Ice Man. And that Q6 run, back early but utterly brilliant over the last five or six minutes. Calm afterwards, knowing there’s still a long, long way to go. Will that ice-cool exterior hold? Will the interior emotions remain under iron control? He’s already moved from “the coming man” to “genuine international superstar” this week – but it’s a huge step from there to the IFMAR Hall of Fame.

Ronnefalk, the Viking. We had him in our top five predictions pre-race, but only just. Form has been up and down this year, the warmup race not good at all. But form, as they say, is temporary, while class is permanent. There’s a calm confidence about his demeanour from what we can see on the screens. He’s the fastest. He’s making up the fuel-stop disadvantage over ten minutes. He’ll have 30 minutes to make up that same disadvantage in the semi, and equally plenty of time in the main. It’s the most confident, comfortable I think I’ve seen him for years.

Ongaro. This man I find so fascinating. And here’s why. He spends two years focussed on one thing – the next 60-minute World Championship final. Everything in his racing program serves that goal, that moment, that challenge. He hasn’t looked great in qualifying, and from the viewpoint of a phone screen at 4am it’s hard to say why – but I wonder if he's on a tyre that takes some time to come on; only in the last few minutes of a qualifying heat does he start to look comfortable. Is it deliberate? Is he so brave as to choose a tyre that isn’t ideal in quali but will come to the fore over the last 15 or 20 minutes of the final? Remember his interview at Neo, the 45-minute final in which he talked about how good the car and tyre was in the last minute? That’s only ¾ distance tomorrow. Or is he in trouble, the car, the tyre, the driver just not quite gelling with this layout?

Canas, the bird. That one moment in Q6, crashing out of a TQ run, a gesture made in anger sums up the two things I think about Canas. First, he absolutely has front-running pace. He was 15 seconds away from a TQ run, from matching and beating Fuller, Ronnefalk, and Ongaro. It was a tiny mistake with huge consequences. So speed, without question. They’ve worked through the week, focused on Saturday, and the speed is there. The mistake is a worry, but maybe that’s also a sign of the second thing I wonder about: just how incredibly hungry is Canas for this win? So close twice now, arguably the fastest in the world over the last few years apart from the Worlds races themselves. He has to be deeply, deeply hungry for this win.

Lemieux, the outsider still? Chase Lemieux went within a few minutes of a ROAR National win a few weeks back. He’s been in scintillating 1/10 form for the better part of a year now. And he’s been absolutely in the thick of it this week. And yet he still feels like something of a long shot. Just me? Just the quiet, composed way he carries himself at an event and in between? More than any of the others, I wonder if the semi-final might be the make or break for him this week. Clean and fast in a semi, the chance to start in the top few positions in the main and we might be thinking about him very differently at 3.55pm tomorrow, just before the main runs. He hasn’t got the track record in this category, at this level, and yet….the same is true for everybody right before they win their first World Championship. Control the nerves, control the semi-final, and he’s no longer an outsider.

Maifield, the legend. From the outside, it looks like an up and down week. Struggling for seeding pace. Fast early in quali but not quite progressing in speed the way others have. Just maybe not the perfect track for Maifield to strut his extraordinary experience the way he could if it was rough and broken and crumbling. And yet….I think we haven’t yet seen the last, or the best of him this week. Maybe he feels on the back foot, or maybe he’s going into tomorrow amped for a big day. I once wrote about elite competitors being “secure in the confidence that comes from being the best of all”, and I wonder if Maifield can summon that confidence tomorrow. And I wonder if it actually comes down to the first couple of minutes of his semi. Clean start, apply pressure. Apply the Maifield magic.

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We could go on. Phend, Rivkin, the young charger Noha Ben Mohammed, the spitfire fury of Burak Kilic. Whose character will we see to the fore tomorrow?

But honestly, I’m spitballing here anyway without being able to be at the venue and watch closely what’s happening. But those are the two things I’m thinking about as we head into Championship day, the event not yet half run: Who’s got the speed over the whole hour, and who’s got the mindset to become Champion.

I can’t wait.