Orlowski tops opening seeding practice at TITC

Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski has topped the opening round of seeding practice at the TITC, the defending Champion remaining the man to beat in Bangkok having been the benchmark for a week of free practice.  With practice fatigue starting to kick in around the pits, the first of the two rounds of seeding brought a sense of excitement as it would allow everyone to see where they and their rivals are at.  While Orlowski appeared to lose some of his pace advantage in the final practice run that opened Day 1 of the race, it appeared to be only a temporary glitch with the Pole laying down the fastest 3-consecutive laps but Infinity’s Bruno Coelho was only 7/100ths of a second off Orlowski’s 42.406 pace.  Despite suffering from heat stroke, an impressive showing from Xray’s Jin Sawada would see the Japanese driver set the third fastest time ahead of the Awesomatix of Marc Rheinard, the pair over 2/10th of a second off the current pace.  Putting Tamiya in the final last year, Souta Goto ran the 5th fastest while 2-time Champion Akio Sobue made it 6 different manufacturers in the Top 6 with his Axon, the Japanese driver switching between two different cars here at RC Addict, one with new parts and the other with parts they ran at the FEMCA Championships in preparation for the upcoming Worlds at the same track.

Reacting to topping the first times to count for anything so far, Orlowski said, ‘It was the most exciting run of the week because after one week of open practice we were now on the track and on the clock from the starting grid so that was quite exciting to see everyone’s pace.’  He continued, ‘the car was OK.  We are not really worried about the 3-laps, we are just looking at 5-minutes.  We have been trying very small things every run trying to get the best out of the car.  We might try something small for the last one but we always have a good base set-up to go back to so we are in a good position but it’s only the first official practice.’  Starting out the event thinking he preferred the return to the classic RC Addict/TITC layout, his only previous TITC experience being last year, he said, ‘Initially driving around the track I really enjoyed it but there are a few areas on it where there is quite a big bump in a crucial part of the corner on the racing line and it can catch you out.  Everyone needs to be a little careful in those areas but all in all the layout is fun and it is the original layout of the track so it nice to be racing on it.’

Coelho seemed content with his opening seeding effort saying, ‘We tried something different on the car.  Today we improved a lot over the other days and this round we tried to go more in that direction and I think it was a bit too much and we will go back to the previous set-up that as better.’  The World Champion continued, ‘It is still practice and we still have to try everything.’  A driver with plenty of experience of the classic layout and chasing a record 5th TITC win this weekend, he said, ‘the classic layout is always super nice to drive and I think I have driven it with more bumps each time.  It’s the same layout but just with more bumps through the years but that is a characteristic of this track, everyone that comes here knows it’s high traction and bumpy and that’s it.’  With the race marking 12-months since his very high profile race debut with Infinity here in Bangkok, Coelho concluded that for now everything for the 22nd edition of the TITC was ‘going in a good way.’

While not personally feeling the best today, Sawada said his car was super good and easy to drive.  He did however feel that the drop off after the first minute was a little more than he would like.  The 26-year-old said he is using his over using front tyre a bit too much and will make an adjustment for this in the hope of getting a more consistent 5-minute run from the car.  The Xray team are running their new X4’26 in kit format with just the Mod drivers using their new optional steel chassis given the track conditions.

Summing up how his TITC was going, Rheinard said, ‘we’ve had many ups & downs but we are always in the Top 5 I would say but it’s difficult to be honest but that’s like always here.’  With this year’s TITC marking two decades now since the German won his only TITC title, he continued, ‘the track changes, yesterday Orlowski was super fast and today he probably tried something and was kind of the same pace as us and now he gained like 2-seconds and maybe one to Bruno if he doesn’t crash.  I still have room to improve.  I didn’t have a clean run.  I didn’t drive well and the car didn’t feel 100% right, right to left, so now we try to fix it and go again.’  On the classic layout that the organisers have switched back to this year, the multiple World Champion said, ‘I already forgot how the layout was last year but I like the classic layout actually its good for racing’.  On bumps, he replied, ‘actually it is not too bad.  The one at the end of the straight is not effecting us much and for this layout it is way better than it was years before (in terms of the severity of the bumps).’  Regarding what he would like to get from the car in terms of improving the handling he said, ‘It different every run.  Before it was a bit loose to the right for example at the end of the straight so I had no confidence to steer.  Two runs before it was super easy to drive so not sure if that was something in the tyre or the car balance because maybe I didn’t tweak it right.’  He concluded, ‘We are not far off.’

Giving his reaction to the opening seeding, Goto said his car felt good but the track conditions were a bit difficult.  Today many drivers reported this as being the hottest day of the event so far.  With this his first experience of the classic RC Addict layout, through the interpretation of Tamiya’s Kono Takayuki, the 25-year-old said he is enjoying the layout.  In terms of the car, the recently announced TRF421X, Takayuki confirmed that in Modified their drivers are running a steel chassis from WEiRC.  While Goto arrived in Thailand for the event last Sunday and has put a lot of mileage on the car, he still has something he wants to try in evening’s second seeding run which is commonly referred to as ‘Happy Hour’.