No surprises in Bangkok, Orlowski Top Seed at TITC

Michal Orlowski is the Top Seed at the TITC, the Schumacher driver clearly having the edge on his rivals in Bangkok.  Topping the first of the two seeding rounds in the middle of the day, the driver who stole the show on his debut at the iconic race last year, would prove he had an even greater advantage as the day concluded in the cooler ‘Happy Hour’ evening conditions.  Having been Orlowski’s closest challenger in the first round, that high traction in Round 2 would catch out Bruno Coelho, the Infinity driver traction rolling to outside the track fencing, as Marc Rheinard claimed the No.2 seeding for tomorrow’s qualifying with his time.  Rheinard’s fastest 3-consecutive laps would be over 3/10ths of a second off his good friend Orlowski and 17/100ths better than Coelho’s effort, the World Champion’s roll happening 2-minutes into the 5-minute run by which time most drivers had already got the best from their tyres.  With seeding seeing the Top 7 times come from Round 2, Xray’s Jin Sawada claiming P8 as he failed to better his CP1, it was Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura who set the 4th fastest time having struggled with too much steering in the first one.  Another big improvement and relieved to put himself in the top heat for qualifying as the No.5 car was Lucas Urbain, the Awesomatix driver having had a good showing last year to qualify 4th.  Carrying the hopes of loyal Tamiya fans around the world, after a strong CP1, Souta Goto kept his TRF421X inside the Top 6 with an improved CP2 ahead of the Mugen Seiki of Ronald Volker.  In Open Brushless, the grid attracting a strong European contingent, after a delay in publishing the ranking after a timing glitch in the second round it was local racer Mongkolphan Lomrose who is the top seed for RC Xpress ahead of Awesomatix’s Olivier Bultynck and Xray’s Adam Izsay who has podiumed the last two years.  It is a rule that once a drivers wins Open Brushless they can’t return to the class.  2024 Champion and reigning Pro Stock World Champion Simon Lauter acquitted himself well last year making the Modified A-Main and back this year the German will go into qualifying as the 14th seed just ahead of former 1:8 Buggy World Champion David Ronnefalk.

Pleased with his efforts on the first official day of these the 22nd running of the Thailand International Touring Car Championship, Orlowski summed up his top seed run with, ‘It was good.’  He explained, ‘We put together everything that was good earlier in the week.  We have been very close on set-up for multiple days and were just trying to find something better and we put it all together now and it felt nice for the beginning, the pace, so we are just going to keep it the same.  My base is strong both in the morning and the afternoon so hopefully it will be good tomorrow.  That was probably the most enjoyable run I have had all week so far.’

Reacting to the run that seeds him No.2 for qualifying, Rheinard said, ‘P2 is good but it is hard to drive in the Happy Hour.  The German continued, ‘Michal was already yesterday super fast in the evening and now he just repeated the same thing.  We don’t drive that late tomorrow so lets hope but it is difficult, really difficult.  Michal just gets faster and faster but lets see how it is tomorrow, he wasn’t that quick in the day time but I guess they tried something and know that when they come back to their normal set-up it will be fast.  Asked about changes to his own Cayote powered A800RR he said, ‘I didn’t have enough super glue (on his tyre wall) so I need to put more on for the Happy Hour but there is not much else we can try at this stage.

Asked about his DNF, Coelho said, ‘I tractioned roll at the beginning of the straight, it was Happy Hour now, and the car was gripping a lot and I probably forced a little bit too much for the conditions, and yeh, I crashed.’  Asked if he got any meaningful data from the 2-minutes he did run, he replied, ‘we always suffer a little bit in these conditions on super high traction.  It is our lets say negative at the moment which we have to work on.  During the day was super hot and our pace was pretty good but when the grip goes up a lot we suffer a little bit more and we need to work in that direction.

Happy with how his day ended thanks to pulling off a significant improvement on his earlier run, Matsukura said he made a change to the front end of his Speciale after he struggled with too much steering in the first round which meant he ‘couldn’t drive full punch.’  Going with a more understeer in the front approach for the second seeding he the multiple World Champion said, ‘in the beginning it was very nice but in the second lap I made a mistake, so after the lost time I still get a 4 and I am so happy for this but in the end after three minutes the car is a little difficult to drive.  So tomorrow I don’t know how traction is going to be but I need to change the car a little for the 5-minutes.  Tomorrow’s (Friday) schedule will see 3 of the 5 qualifiers run.

A driver who made is international debut as a full time Pro racer at the TITC in 2024, and still with Awesomaric, reacting to his run, Urbain, said, ‘It was more than welcome and great to get the laps together to be in the big show tomorrow.  I copied Lukas (Ellerbrock) in all his set-up so props to them for all the good work which is mostly coming from Max’s (Machler) work all week.  I was kind of desperate to find some pace and copied their cars and while it is still far from perfect it improved a lot the entry to mid corner but the corner exit I am still struggling.  I can’t accelerate as hard as I want, the car is bouncing like hell so either I have too much power or something needs to be done with the suspension, shocks, geometry, some along these lines.’  Looking to qualifying the French driver said, ‘I know in the morning when there is a bit less grip my car is a bit better on throttle and I can put the power the way I want to so I am a bit more confident for tomorrow that I have the 5-minutes but in the evening it starts OK and then it gets worse, every lap it bounces more and more.  I have not yet been able to solve that so that is the homework for tonight I guess to figure it out.  Thankfully it is 2 out of 5, so many attempts, many jokers, I don’t actually like it cause on a tie break anybody can score a good one and pass you.  I would much rather 2 out of 4 or 3 out of 5 but this is what we are given so I am going to try take advantage of it and send it.’

Orlowski tops opening seeding practice at TITC

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has topped the opening round of seeding practice at the TITC, the defending Champion remaining the man to beat in Bangkok having been the benchmark for a week of free practice.  With practice fatigue starting to kick in around the pits, the first of the two rounds of seeding brought a sense of excitement as it would allow everyone to see where they and their rivals are at.  While Orlowski appeared to lose some of his pace advantage in the final practice run that opened Day 1 of the race, it appeared to be only a temporary glitch with the Pole laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps but Infinity’s Bruno Coelho was only 7/100ths of a second off Orlowski’s 42.406 pace.  Despite suffering from heat stroke, an impressive showing from Xray’s Jin Sawada would see the Japanese driver set the third fastest time ahead of the Awesomatix of Marc Rheinard, the pair over 2/10th of a second off the current pace.  Putting Tamiya in the final last year, Souta Goto ran the 5th fastest while 2-time Champion Akio Sobue made it 6 different manufacturers in the Top 6 with his Axon, the Japanese driver switching between two different cars here at RC Addict, one with new parts and the other with parts they ran at the FEMCA Championships in preparation for the upcoming Worlds at the same track.

Reacting to topping the first times to count for anything so far, Orlowski said, ‘It was the most exciting run of the week because after one week of open practice we were now on the track and on the clock from the starting grid so that was quite exciting to see everyone’s pace.’  He continued, ‘the car was OK.  We are not really worried about the 3-laps, we are just looking at 5-minutes.  We have been trying very small things every run trying to get the best out of the car.  We might try something small for the last one but we always have a good base set-up to go back to so we are in a good position but it’s only the first official practice.’  Starting out the event thinking he preferred the return to the classic RC Addict/TITC layout, his only previous TITC experience being last year, he said, ‘Initially driving around the track I really enjoyed it but there are a few areas on it where there is quite a big bump in a crucial part of the corner on the racing line and it can catch you out.  Everyone needs to be a little careful in those areas but all in all the layout is fun and it is the original layout of the track so it nice to be racing on it.’

Coelho seemed content with his opening seeding effort saying, ‘We tried something different on the car.  Today we improved a lot over the other days and this round we tried to go more in that direction and I think it was a bit too much and we will go back to the previous set-up that as better.’  The World Champion continued, ‘It is still practice and we still have to try everything.’  A driver with plenty of experience of the classic layout and chasing a record 5th TITC win this weekend, he said, ‘the classic layout is always super nice to drive and I think I have driven it with more bumps each time.  It’s the same layout but just with more bumps through the years but that is a characteristic of this track, everyone that comes here knows it’s high traction and bumpy and that’s it.’  With the race marking 12-months since his very high profile race debut with Infinity here in Bangkok, Coelho concluded that for now everything for the 22nd edition of the TITC was ‘going in a good way.’

While not personally feeling the best today, Sawada said his car was super good and easy to drive.  He did however feel that the drop off after the first minute was a little more than he would like.  The 26-year-old said he is using his over using front tyre a bit too much and will make an adjustment for this in the hope of getting a more consistent 5-minute run from the car.  The Xray team are running their new X4’26 in kit format with just the Mod drivers using their new optional steel chassis given the track conditions.

Summing up how his TITC was going, Rheinard said, ‘we’ve had many ups & downs but we are always in the Top 5 I would say but it’s difficult to be honest but that’s like always here.’  With this year’s TITC marking two decades now since the German won his only TITC title, he continued, ‘the track changes, yesterday Orlowski was super fast and today he probably tried something and was kind of the same pace as us and now he gained like 2-seconds and maybe one to Bruno if he doesn’t crash.  I still have room to improve.  I didn’t have a clean run.  I didn’t drive well and the car didn’t feel 100% right, right to left, so now we try to fix it and go again.’  On the classic layout that the organisers have switched back to this year, the multiple World Champion said, ‘I already forgot how the layout was last year but I like the classic layout actually its good for racing’.  On bumps, he replied, ‘actually it is not too bad.  The one at the end of the straight is not effecting us much and for this layout it is way better than it was years before (in terms of the severity of the bumps).’  Regarding what he would like to get from the car in terms of improving the handling he said, ‘It different every run.  Before it was a bit loose to the right for example at the end of the straight so I had no confidence to steer.  Two runs before it was super easy to drive so not sure if that was something in the tyre or the car balance because maybe I didn’t tweak it right.’  He concluded, ‘We are not far off.’

Giving his reaction to the opening seeding, Goto said his car felt good but the track conditions were a bit difficult.  Today many drivers reported this as being the hottest day of the event so far.  With this his first experience of the classic RC Addict layout, through the interpretation of Tamiya’s Kono Takayuki, the 25-year-old said he is enjoying the layout.  In terms of the car, the recently announced TRF421X, Takayuki confirmed that in Modified their drivers are running a steel chassis from WEiRC.  While Goto arrived in Thailand for the event last Sunday and has put a lot of mileage on the car, he still has something he wants to try in evening’s second seeding run which is commonly referred to as ‘Happy Hour’.

TITC coverage presented by Cayote | Gens ace

Race week has arrived for the world’s most important annual touring car race and Red RC is excited to announce we are teaming up with electronics manufacturer Cayote and battery manufacturer Gens ace to bring you coverage from the legendary TITC in Thailand.  The 22nd edition of the race, this being Red RC’s sixth time to attend, it has become the most significant Modified Touring Car race in world coming second only in prestige to the IFMAR ISTC World Championship.  An event that brings together all the right elements that make for a truly unique racing atmosphere – location, track, ever changing conditions, and the buzz in the busy pits – it sees manufacturers & drivers bring their A-game as they seek to claim a coveted TITC title.  Last year we experienced the hugely impressive TITC debut of Michal Orlowski and the Schumacher star is back to try & defend his title, a feat that has only ever been achieved by World Champions.  Surikarn Chaidajsuriya won the first running of the race in 2003 and again a year later.  Atsushi Hara won in 2005 before going back to back in 2010.  Winning again in 2013, Hara together with Bruno Coelho are the race’s most winning drivers with 4 wins each.  The reigning World Champion, Coelho made his debut for Infinity at RC Addict last year.  Racing a brand new prototype car he couldn’t quite complete three in a row finishing second to Orlowski, but now firmly settled in with his new team he will be a serious contender to become the races most winning driver but the best n the world have their own plans to be on the top step of the podium.  With many drivers already well settled-in in Bangkok and clocking up mileage, some very heavy rain showers halting the action but hopefully not going to effect the race program, our coverage will start when the 2026 TITC officially gets underway on Thursday and concludes with the latest entry into the race’s Roll of Honour on Sunday.