Volker takes A1 at FIRC
Ronald Volker has taken the opening A-Main at the inaugural Foshan Invitational RC Championship in China, the Mugen Seiki driver kept honest over the 5-minutes by the Awesomatix of Chinese driver Vening Zhuo as chaos broke out behind. With race organiser Gavin Kwok’s goal of hosting the race at his GDC Indoor track to highlight the international level to local racers, Volker put on the perfect display as he lead the field away from the TQ. Only Zhuo would be able to hang with the former World Champion as the pair quickly pulled away and gapped the other 8 starters. Behind all the attention was on the battle for 3rd with the pack building up behind a struggling Marco Ma who had Xray team Jerry Dai all over his back bumper. Six laps in as they came on to the straight Ma got out of shape setting a chain of crashes with Xpress’ Yugo Nagashima coming out the best of it in 3rd having found him push out of position and down to ninth on the opening lap. With Volker and Zhuo quickly in traffic the both navigated it well to with Nagashima holding position to complete the Top 3 ahead of the recovering Dai.
Summing up the opening final, Volker start, ‘I made a good start and Vening was following me pretty. He promised he would so it was good’. The German continued, ‘I’m not sure what happened behind but there was a lot of action and after that I had a few rough laps in traffic and ended up with dirty tyres. I’m sure it was the same for Vening but I’m glad to get the win.’ A much colder day today in Foshan City, on his car’s performance in A1 he said, ‘I’m happy with how the car performed today, it was as good as it was yesterday and the tyres have great grip now’ – drivers each using a single set of hand out Sweep tyres.
Pleased with opening race, Zhuo joked, ‘It was good but not good enough’. He continued, ‘I got a good start and just tried to follow Ronald in the hope that would help me pull away from 3rd place and it worked out. Ronald had good pace and I was able to follow him and still drive safe’. Planning no changes to his A800R for A2, he said maybe he would try for something in the first three corners but after that his plan is follow Volker again and finish safely content that finishing 2nd behind the professional driver would be a result he would very content with.
Starting from fourth on the grid but completing first lap down in ninth after he got pushed out of the way at the start, Nagashima was not impressed by the driving standards describing the race as ‘very dirty’. The Japanese driver explained, ‘there were many crash, they push car and don’t wait.’ Hoping for a better, cleaner, race in A2, on a positive note Nagashima said his car was ‘the best it has been’ since he topped seeding on Saturday morning. Having struggled somewhat with his set-up throughout qualifying he said a change made for A1 was a big step in the right direction and a confidence boost for the remaining two finals.
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