Greiner on top as free practice concludes at Nitro Worlds
Having waited four years for it to come around, it is go time at the 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championship in Thailand with Dominic Greiner at the top of the time sheets as controlled practice concludes at RC Addict. After the 14-rounds of practice over the past 2 days, the Capricorn driver set the fastest 3-consecutive laps followed Infinity’s Jilles Groskamp. Reigning Champion Naoto Matsukura completed the Top 3 just ahead of team-mate Jesse Davis while behind it was a trio of 1:8 World Champions. 2017 winner Dario Balestri posted the fourth fastest time from 2013 Champion Tadahiko Sahashi with reigning 1:8 Champion Shoki Takahata completing the Top 6 before the go into four rounds of seeding practice tomorrow (Tuesday).
For Greiner this is his first ever visit to the famed Bangkok circuit and the German’s relationship with the track didn’t get off to the best of starts. Able to avail of the two International Practice Day, the afternoon’s rise in traction resulted in him destroying a chassis each day as his car flew off the track and into the wall at the end of the main straight. He said the track has a lot of bumps, which with the high grip can lead to traction rolls. For controlled practice the reigning European Champion said his car has been ‘super good’ and not just over the 3-laps times as he said they did a number of 4-minute runs for which the car was ‘super consistent’. In the last practice he said his car lacked steering but he knows why so it isn’t anything to be concerned about. Describing the track and the conditions as ‘really special here’, he concluded, ‘the big thing here is to get the set-up right for the conditions of the track at the time you will be driving’.
A driver who tested prior the race and so was unable to do IPD, Groskamp said, ‘the track was completely different from when I tested and I struggled a lot the first day. The track is so different now’. Working on finding a new base set-up for the current conditions, the Dutch driver said he got the car to ‘a good consistent pace’ but added ‘it is not super fast’. With all drivers reporting how much the track changes, the former Electric Touring Car World Champions added, ‘it goes from understeer to oversteer, from flipping to not flipping so I tried lot of things to see what to do for how the track is’. Summing up practice he said, ‘Overall I’m happy and I’m confident’.
‘Every day, every time you go on track it is different’, was Matsukura’s response when asked to sum up practice. Testing prior to the race he said conditions were very consistent then and now he is having to learn what to do with the set-up for the different times of the day for each run. Currently overcast and cool by Thai standards, he said to drive, ‘it feels like you don’t have much traction but at the same time it is easy to flip’. Adding while it is ‘difficult to understand what way to set the car up’ he is ‘super happy to go racing’.
Top Qualifier in Miami in 2018, Balestri said he has been ‘testing a lot of different set-ups’ but believes this morning they found the best compromise’. Describing the track conditions as ‘crazy difficult because it changes every time’, the Italian continued, ‘we don’t focus on speed but the balance of the car. We had a lot of new parts so we have been trying to test everything and in the evening today the car was good’.
Carrying Mugen’s hopes of doing the nitro onroad double, Takahata said his main work has been on trying to avoid his car from flipping. A 1:8 specialist, this is the Japanese drivers first 1:10 race in 3-years so he is also having to readjust to driving touring car admitting he prefers his 1:8 scale. Running a number of prototype parts on the car he said overall it is very consistent even if the track conditions are not.
Currently heading the Serpent challenge is newly crowned ROAR National Champion Bryce Butterfield. The America is in the Top 10 with his best 3-consecutive laps and summed up things as going ‘pretty well’ with him ‘trying something new every run’. While used to high traction he said here it is all in the front end, resulting in the car being twitchy to drive but it is something he has been able to working around. Asked about the car he said it is different to what he uses back home with him having fitted the active rear end during practice to dial it into the track. For fellow Serpent driver and winner of the World Championship the last time it was hosted by RC Addict, Meen Vejrak summed up his practice as being, ‘not so good’. The Thai driver said his car has too much year traction and as result no steering but trying to be positive said,’ I have 4 more practice runs to fix it’.
Tomorrow’s schedule is made up of four rounds of seeding practice that will determine the order for the heats in qualifying.
