Two year wait is over
The two year wait is finally over for the world’s best electric touring car drivers as the fifth IFMAR Electric Onroad Championships is go here in Bangkok, Thailand. Heading the 115 entries from around the globe is defending Champion Andy Moore along with the three champions to go before him, setting the stage for what is certain to be an exciting four days of action at the RCS track.
For the past two world championships it has been the Top Qualifier that has gone on to the take the title. Driving for Hot Bodies, Moore TQ’d in Italy in 2006 from where the Englishman went on to become the World’s No.1. German ace Marc Rheinard achieved the same perfect result when he won the 2004 title in Florida for Tamiya. 2002 winner Surikarn, who now represents Hot Bodies, won the title in South Africa for Tamiya beating pole sitter Barry Baker from the US who is absent this time round.
Atsushi Hara was the first ever Touring Car World Champion winning the title in his home country for Yokomo back in 2000. Also now with Hot Bodies, Hara is statistically the most consistent driver over the four World Championships having been on the podium in three of the four events and this year the Japanese star added the 1:8 Off Road World title to his CV making him one of the sports all round greats.
Outside of those to have achieved the greatest accolade the sport has to offer, one driver to have come so close and who possess a serious treat here this week is Masami Hirosaka. The five time 1:12 World Champion sat out 1:12 this year so as to focus on winning the title he has come so close to winning in the past but which has frustratingly alluded him. In 2000 he TQ’d and finished on the podium and last time round he finished runner-up to Moore.
With such a pool of world class talent in the pits here picking the A Final line up is like trying to choose the numbers for the weekly millions lottery draw but two drivers that stand out are young Swede Vicktor Wilck and fellow Scandinavian Teemu Leino. Wilck won the Pre-Worlds for the Tamiya team here while flying Finn Leino won the TITC event earlier in the year for Xray so they have shown they have what it takes to challenge the famous four and Masami.
Drivers have just completed their first free practice, which has been randomly grouped, with most just using the 5 minute run to settle in and get rubber down on the track which is a different layout to that used for the 1:12 World’s earlier this week. In terms of laps it was Thai driver Meen Vejrak at the controls of an Xray who topped the charts from Wilck with 18 laps in 05:05.286 while the fastest lap was from Hara who posted a 16.531. One more free practice followed by two controlled practices, which will determine the reseed for tomorrow’s qualifiers, make up the rest of today’s timetable.
View our event image gallery here.