Hara leads the way in Thailand

Making their 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championship debut, it is Team HB and Atsushi Hara who lead the way on the second day of free practice at the very well presented RC Addict track in Bangkok, Thailand.  The Japanese star, who now lives in Thailand and has his own pitroom overlooking the track, set the fastest three consecutive laps in the second of the day’s four scheduled 15-minute practice runs to head KM Racing’s Dario Balestri who had set the pace in the morning’s opening practice.  The fifth running of the bi-annual IFMAR event, this is the first occasion that the reigning champion will not travel to defend their title, a broken hand which is in cast forcing Ralph Burch to withdraw his entry.

Hara was happy with his pace saying his OS powered R10 is working really well and it is a credit to designer Miyashita who joined HB from Kyosho just over a year ago.  Having not raced 1:10 nitro for almost 9-years, when he then drove the HPI Racing R40, he said the modern 1:10 nitro car needs to be driven with a lot more aggression similar to that of a 1:8 Onroad car, a style that is totally different to electric touring car which he said he uses the most at this track as part of his regular testing for Team HB.  Impressed by Balestri’s improvement on pace today over yesterday, Hara believes that his biggest challenge is going to be fellow electric touring car ace and newly crowned World champion Jilles Groskamp.  He said the Dutchman, who was fastest at the end of yesterday’s four rounds of practice, doesn’t just have good pace but more importantly knows how to win titles as he found out first hand when he finished runner-up to the Tamiya driver at the Electric World Championship’s which where held on Groskamp’s original home track just outside Amsterdam although having relocated to Bangkok a few years ago RC Addict is now also his home track.

Backing up the potential of the R10, Teemu Leino set the third fastest time while Andy Moore managed 7th.  Leino, who like fellow countryman Kimi Raikkonen prefers to just get on with the job in hand rather than talk about it, said he is still playing around with small set-up adjustments but having traveled to Thailand for two days of testing with his LRP powered example of the R10 he is confident that they have a very competitive car.  The 2006 Electric Touring Car World Champion, Moore was very happy with his pace in yesterday’s practice with today’s runs focusing on running various Maxima engines ahead of having them marked for tomorrow’s three controlled practice rounds which will determine the seeding for qualifying on Tuesday.  The British driver also ran two different chassis today saying the first car was better and it is this one he plans to race.  Having only properly raced nitro once before when he debuted the R10 at the European Championship back in August, the British ace again has the car’s designer Miyashita as his mechanic with Andy’s only job between runs being the saucing of tyres, something he said he could get very used to.

Having shown yesterday that he has a good qualifying set-up for his Maxima powered Capricorn when he topped the time sheets along with setting the outright fastest lap, Groskamp switched his attentions today to working on his set-up for later in the week.  Running larger diameter tyres in each of his 15-minute runs the 2008 World Championship Top Qualifier tried a finals set-up and was pleased that he was still able to set the 14th fastest time just ahead of 2006 World Champion Keisuke Fukuda.  Joining Groskamp at Capricorn is his Tamiya electric Touring Car team-mate Marc Rheinard.  A podium finisher in Texas, this is the German’s third time to contest the nitro Worlds.  Having struggled with the handling yesterday his mechanic & brother Toni found that the car was tweaked.  Fitted with a new radio tray and shocks for today, the 3-time Electric World Champion said the car was ‘so much better’ now.  In the second of his runs, 15 cars running on the track at one time in each free practice, Rheinard ran wide and made heavy impact with what has been christened the ‘wall of death’ at the end of the straight.  Although he was able to continue he said the car didn’t feel right and they will now have to give it a full looking over.  He currently sits 24th fastest.

Running the 4mm shorter KM Racing H-K1 chassis Balestri was happy with his performance in the first two practice runs today.  Describing it as an electric drivers track, the Italian said his factory Novarossi powered car was at about 80% the set-up he would like for qualifying but he was confident that he could get it near to 100% in the next two outings.  Reminded of the last World Championship where no Italian drivers made the final he said he was determined to make sure that didn’t happen again this year.  KM also have super fast Thai driver Meen V, who has so far set the 5th fastest time just behind 2010 runner-up Takehiro Terauchi, and is one driver Hara said has a strong chance at the title due to the amount of testing he has done prior to the event.

While half of the nitro touring car World Champions are absent, inaugural Champion Adrien Bertin also not making the trip to Thailand, all 5 electric touring car world champions have come to Bangkok with home hero Surikarn C holding the 8th fastest time.  Today’s fourth free practice sessions will be used to reseed the groups for controlled practice which will see just 10 cars running at once on the track.

Top Qualifier at the last World Championship and leading the final until his Mugen went out of control when fuel got into his receiver during one of his pit stops, Robert Pietsch set the 16th fastest time today. The 1:8 World Champion had an interesting start to the event as one of his bags got lost in transit.  At the track last night he got a call from his airline at 19:30 that his bags had arrived but were in customs which closed at 20:00.  Immediately hailing a taxi he said the ride to the airport was like something out of Toyko drift but they made it on time and after paying a custom charge, which his airline will refund to him, his bag with all his spares parts was released.  Having tried a different car and set-up in the first two practice runs today the German said they went the wrong direction with the set-up and he will go back to the car he ran yesterday for the final two free practice runs as it was not as edgy to drive.  A better set-up he said they still needed to find something and even then it was going to be hard to match the pace of the local track heros.

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