Day 1 complete, World Champion Coelho sets benchmark

Day 1 of the 2026 IFMAR ISTC World Championships is done and it is defending World Champion Bruno Coelho who set the benchmark all day, the Infinity driver topping all five rounds of free practice today in Thailand.  With drivers getting their first taste of the track’s updated Huge RC Circuit layout in FP1, any concerns of traction where quickly quashed as the grip came up quicker than anticipated, Coelho setting his fastest 3-consecutive laps in Round 4.  Starting the day with the second fastest time, Marc Rheinard would finish free practice with another strong run, his FP5 time the second fastest time of the day running a 41.075 – no one able to join Coelho in running 3-laps in 40-seconds.  Having lost his way a little with set-up in the afternoon, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski would complete the Top 3 in the final run with the Awesomatix of Simon Lauter fourth fastest.  In the previous round the Stock World Champion would post the second fastest time in between Coelho and Rheinard with 2014 World Champion Naoto Matsukura clocking the 4th fastest time ahead of RC Maker’s Antoine Brunet.  It was to be a similar story of one driver setting the benchmark in the Stock class also with Oliver Bultynck fastest on every occasion.  The Belgian would cap off a strong opening day with his fastest time in the final run ahead of Awesomatix team-mate Max Machler as we head into seeding tomorrow and end Day 2’s action with the first qualifier.

Summing his first day as the defending World Champion, Coelho said, ‘It was a solid day I would say.’  He explained, ‘we tried many things back to back and tried different directions to see how the car reacts so it was a positive day.’  Asked about the track conditions for the final round, the Portuguese ace unable to better his fastest time from FP4, he replied, ‘the track was good, we just made a little change on the car it was not that good and also changed the second one which was a little bit better so we just have to decide now what we are going to run for the race’, drivers having to their single car IFMAR marked for racing proper here in Bangkok  Asked about his crash ahead of Rheinard, he said, ‘Yeah I touched the curb and I hit the wall’, the damage inflicted on the first of the two cars he ran in the round.

‘Improving’ was Rheinard’s reaction at the conclusion of free practice.  The multiple World Champion saying, ‘we still have some small changes but we are focused on 5-minutes and that is why I am running just one car and working on one car.  We made some changes and for sure they felt pretty good.’  A driver who won his first World title two decades ago this year, he added, ‘I think Bruno is still faster but we don’t know his 5-minute pace.  When he was behind me I could see in some corners I could pull away a bit and in some others he was just catching.  I let him by and wanted to follow him and see from the back of the car but then he crashed it so I couldn’t see anymore but I think we are actually not too bad.’  On how the track is evolving, the German said, ‘I am sure we will see a different track again tomorrow because I think they are going to sweep the track again tomorrow morning so I guess it will be different but maybe in a good way.’

Recapping his day, Orlowski said, ‘It was good.  The track changed a bit and we were thinking what to do to find steering.  I think that was the biggest issue, at the beginning we thought maybe the grip is really low and we need to find more traction but this was the wrong direction which we took for the middle part of the day.  For the last one I went back on many changes and just tried to find more steering with some extreme changes and it was massively better and we just need to go in that direction.’  Explain why he added, ‘I think the layout just requires more natural steering from the car which we were getting rid of during testing to make the car easier to drive.’  Chatting to Red RC just after the opening ceremony, the Polish racer added, ‘walking the track now it seems very close to what we had before and it is just the car needs a different balance.  We have lots of notes from the testing, and we have lots more practice tomorrow to find the right balance.  Once we have that I will faster on a single lap and more consistent on 5-minutes.’

‘I think it was a good day today’, was how Lauter summed up his performance.  The German explained, ‘the track evolved in a way that I think suits our car a little because we did not change that much on the set-up but the track came closer to what we need or what we want.’  This year’s TITC podium finisher added, ‘I expect it to get even more like this in the next day so this could probably be the right direction.  I mean obviously Bruno and Michal are the ones to beat here but both of them have not done 5-minute runs yet and I am quite happy with my pace (at the) end of the run.’  On changes made over the day he said, ‘I think the biggest change was a slight smoother overall car and electronics but that’s what everyone did I suspect because the left part you just roll the car through and don’t pull too much.  This is hard for me as a Stock driver to not over pull because this is usually what I tend to do so we need to find a good set-up for this.  Apart from this we just waited and hope that we worked in the right direction in IPD and Tim the week before’.  Lauter’s mechanic and very accomplished racer Tim Wahl took on pre-event testing duties reversing roles so then Lauter’s could do IPD.