Additive switch transforms 1:12 Worlds

Day 2 of the IFMAR 1:12 World Championship at Burgdorf, Germany, has a new air of excitement after it was decided this morning to allow a second tyre additive to be used.  Yesterday the cars didn’t look good on track and drivers complained of a complete lack of traction. Despite a full day of running on the CRC carpet no black line appeared raising concerns about the batch of controlled additive provided by the race organisers.  Following a team managers meeting IFMAR made the decision to allow the use of a second additive and immediately the results could be seen with a black line appearing after just two groups of drivers completed 4 minutes each on the track.

With the grip coming up almost instantly the lap times tumbled with Ronald Volker setting a new fastest lap time of 12.603 compared to the 13.493 set in yesterday’s final practice by defending World Champion Naoto Matsukura.  After the short round of 4-minute practice Volker described conditions as ‘Totally different’ saying it now ‘feels like proper 1:12 racing’.

As a result of the completely different track conditions facing the drivers today Dutch Race Director Frans Heinsbroek has amended the timetable to give the 65 drivers extra track time to prepare for qualifying.  An additional round of 4-minute free practice has been added and what was to be the opening qualifier will now be untimed.  To ensure drivers still get six rounds of qualifying, tomorrow’s Finals day will now open with the sixth & last round of heats.

Behind Volker in terms of lap times it was Corally’s Simo Ahoniemi who was second fastest this morning with 12.704 followed by Josh Cyrul’s CEFX on 12.788.

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