Rookie came, Rookie conquered, Orlowski nails TITC win
It won’t be remembered for the intense racing action like we witnessed last year, but the 21st edition of the TITC will go down in the history records as the year the Rookie Michal Orlowski turned up and absolutely nailed the win at the legendary race. Completing a clean sweep of all four qualifiers, starting the finals from the TQ, Orlowski armed with his Schumacher was the class act gapping the second place qualifier & defending Champion Bruno Coelho almost immediately in both A-Mains. Having taken the opening encounter on Saturday, in A2 the Polish ace looked even stronger with Coelho finding himself having to deal with Marc Rheinard on his rear bumper for the entire race. With almost 3-seconds on his rivals, he cruised to the win and with it the title to become its 11th different champion of the Bangkok race. A race that is often referred to by drivers as ‘the toughest touring car race in the world’, Orlowski’s performance this weekend was something special and for the World Championship Top Qualifier a major psychological boost.
Putting it to him if today was sweet revenge, Orlowski replied, ‘I would say so, I have had loads of TQ’s recently and I didn’t convert them into wins. I could see on social media all the comments that I slow down in the finals and stuff like that, so I really wanted to prove everyone wrong here and prove to myself as well because I started doubt myself on being able to start first. In qualifying we were super close with Bruno so Marc was trying to play mind games with me and saying Bruno will take me out, everyone was telling me he will take me out so I tried to block all this out and do my thing. The car was amazing in the finals and this allowed me to pull away. I never looked back and I am really proud of how I was able to drive. In the finals from the first lap I had a comfortable gap, Bruno was never even close and I just kept pulling away from the whole field. I am really proud of that especially being here for the first time and how difficult this race is with the changing conditions but we were always strong.’
Asked if he surprised himself at how dominant he was, he replied, ‘For sure I am extremely surprised, I wasn’t expecting at all to be this fast, I was hoping to make the main and just be competitive so that I have some sort of pace to fight for the podium or the usual guys I fight with. I absolutely did not expect to have so much speed over everyone else so I’m really proud of the work I did with Mattia (Collina), the guys from Elceram over the week of testing. I think this is very unique because it so rewarding all this practice because we put in so many hours here at the track in this heat, we work so hard and then at the end, this time we won, maybe next we might not, but all this work meant something.’
The 1:12 World Champion acknowledged the support of his team-mate Pekko Iivonen and a certain Joseph Quagraine, ‘I am happy to work with Pekko as well, it was nice to have him here and JQ. I must say many people can say something bad about him and sometimes maybe he speaks too much on social media but I think he’s actually really smart. In Q4 gave me a set of shock to put on my car, we had secured the TQ in Q3, and we wanted to try something for the finals to improve the base to increase the gap to make it more comfortable for me, the car was always quite on edge in qualifying so JQ gave me a set of shocks, I don’t know what was inside, but it was actually quite ok, maybe not perfect, but I told him there was something good in it. And then we made half a millimeter change of bumpsteer, his favourite thing, for A1 and my car was amazing so he as well played a big part and made my speed visible with his Invisible Speed so it’s been an awesome week. I am really happy for Elceram, they helped us a lot with the settings and made sure everything was running well no issues as almost all the other brands had some sort of problems at some point this week and we had absolutely zero problems so I really happy with everything.’
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