Chassis – Team Associated RC8 B4.1e
ESC – Hobbywing XR8 Pro G3
Motor – Hobbywing 1900KV
Battery – Sunpadow 6500mAh
Tires – Matrix
Radio/Servo – Sanwa Exzes ZZ / Sanwa PGS-XR II
Body – Xtreme Aria
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Xray’s David Ronnefalk has won eBuggy at the SIGP in China, a 3-way battle for the overall victory & its more than €2,500 1st place prize money being decided in the third A-Main. Having secured the TQ on tie-break from Ronnefalk, Team Associated’s Davide Ongaro would take the opening win from his Swedish rival with the Sworkz of Nitro Buggy Top Qualifier Mattia Polito completing the Top 3. In A2 it would be Polito who came away with the win over Ronnefalk in a race that saw Ongaro and Bruno Coelho come together in mid air. This set the stage for an A3 showdown between Ongaro, Polito and Ronnefalk.
Initially it looked like it was the reigning European eBuggy Champion Ongaro who had it in the bag as the Italian pulled clear of No.2 starter Ronnefalk. With Coelho finding his way passed his team-mate, the Portuguese driver started to close down Ongaro forcing a mistake from the leader on lap 4 and allowing him to go to the front. From there Coelho controlled the race and, with no chance of the overall win himself after he failed to start A1 due to a loose steering servo mount, he would play the team game and allow his team-mate through into the lead. While a moment for Ronnefalk on the last lap had everyone on their feet, Coelho had him protected from his rivals as a very hard charging Ongaro tried to get back in touch until a mistake ended that effort. Talking A3 by half a second from Coelho with Polito a further 3/10ths back ahead of Ongaro, overall it was Ongaro who took the runner-up spot with Polito joining the two World Champions on the podium.
Reacting to his win, event organiser Sunpadow batteries putting up 20,000RMB (€2,617 approx) for each of the buggy class winners at the SIGP, Ronnefalk said, ‘I almost threw it away on the last lap hitting a hole in one of the jumps but before that Bruno had good speed and got by me on the second lap. I didn’t force anything too much because it was also good if he would put pressure on Davide which was needed if I was going to win. Davide ended up crashing and after that Bruno was leading in front of me and he let me go this time, I got the sensation of that at least. He had a small bobble but then he didn’t close the door or anything he just let me go and after that he didn’t try to overtake or anything cause his chances where already lost in eBuggy after the first two rounds. So thanks to him, he held off second there after a hard charging Davide towards the end but I am pleased to get the win in that one considering I was struggling a little bit with the traction towards the end of the race.’
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The 2024 FEMCA ISTC Championship was completed last weekend (December 7-8th) at the GDC Indoor track in Foshan, China were Bruno Coelho took the win. While it was the World Champion who dominated proceedings to add a first FEMCA title to his CV, the very fact he and former World Champion Naoto Matsukura were there racing against Asia’s top drivers was a huge boost for those racers who don’t normally get such an opportunity. While Coelho impressed his rivals on track, even Marc Rheinard, Atsushi Hara and Jilles Groskamp dropping by and watching him set the pace, the hosts impressed Coelho and the rest of the international visitors with a very impressive opening ceremony. Red RC’s first time to attend the FEMCA ISTC Championship, having previously attended the FEMCA 1:8 Offroad Championship, it was an opportunity to photograph the cars of some of the regions leading drivers for our Chassis Focus. With the championship attracting close to 100 entries, we featured 10 cars including the Xray of Chinese National Champion Jerry Dai. We got to put cars from 6 different manufacturers in front of our camera to share the details with touring car fans around the world and now have complied them all into one handy index.
Bruno Coelho – Xray (TQ/FEMCA Champion)
Naoto Matsukura – Infinity (Q2/P2)
Shin Sawada – Xray (Q3/P3)
Kenrick Fong – Axon (TQ/FEMCA Champion 17.5 Blinky)
Kouki Kato – Infinity (A-Main)
Jerry Dai – Xray (Chinese National Champion – A-Main)
Rocket Zhang – Awesomatix (A-Main)
Maxim Laverychev – Awesomatix (A-Main)
Lo Lo – Serpent (A-Main)
Eric Lam – Xpress
Bruno Coelho has added a FEMCA title to his racing CV, the multiple World and European Champion now official the Champion of Asia in Electric Touring Car. Securing the overall TQ at the event hosted at the GDC track in Foshan, China, the Xray driver continued his dominant form into the finals. Cruising to the win in A1 ahead of former World Champion Naoto Matsukura, he sealed the deal in A2 with another text book race this time ahead of team-mate Shin Sawada. A3 would then decide which side Matsukura and Sawada would stand next to Coelho on the events impressive podium presentation, the entire race weekend taking RC events to a very high level in terms of presentation. Leading away the field in the closing race, Matsukura would see off a determined challenge from his fellow Japanese driver even surviving heavy contact with the boards to win A3 and claim the runner-up spot, the same result he achieved on his only other previous FEMCA ISTC Championship appearance. With racing on carpet somewhat an alien experience for Sawada, he completed the podium. Qualifying fourth, Japanese Offroad Champion Kouki Kato would finish in that position ahead of the Awesomatix of Maxim Laverychev who went one better this year than he achieved on his first visit to the GDC track last year.
Reacting to his FEMCA title win Coelho said, ‘It was a very good race and it was very nice to be here. I have never been to a FEMCA Championship before so it is very nice to attend. This kind of race in Asia is very important for me as I have many sponsors here so it is always nice to come here to say thank you to them and also show my image here and not only on the other side of the world. It was a very nice race and it gave us the chance to test many things together with our sponsor who where here like Hobbywing. The have a new speedo and it was nice to work with them trying to find out new things on the speedo. The race ran really well for us even when the traction went down a little bit we were able to change the set-up and get the car working well. Today the grip came back up again and I was able to do the same lap times as I was doing in practice 2-days ago when the track was really really good which means the car was on point.’ While the touring car race is done, today’s win doesn’t mark the end of Coelho’s stay in China. Next weekend he will make the switch to offroad for the SIGP in Xiamen. First however he will do a little more sightseeing tomorrow with race organiser Gavin Kwok for he is very grateful for his and the Hongyu Group’s hospitality throughout the race. Asked if he was looking forward to SIGP, Coelho said, ‘Yes but for sure it will be tough cause Ongaro is coming, the World Champion is coming, which will make things for sure super tough but I will have the help of my team-mate David Ronnefalk and we will try to get Ongaro for sure.’
Another driver very grateful to Kwok for the hospitality, both he and Coelho enjoying doing a photo & video shoot at a local tourist site ahead of the Championship, Matsukura said while second overall was ‘OK’, given his last Electric Touring Car race was the TITC back in March, he always wants better. Summing up his weekend, the 2014 ISTC World Champion said, ‘with the tyre here every time in practice it was getting better traction but then when the race started sometimes the track had low traction and that was challenging. Sometimes you needed more traction like this morning but then after in the final too much traction, so this result is not bad after a long break from touring car.’
Like Matsukura, Sawada wasn’t content with his result. Asked if was happy with his podium finish the 20-year-old said, ‘I wanted more’. The Japanese did however enjoy his battles in the finals with Matsukura despite being unable to get by, his 2nd place in A2 coming when his rival touched the curbing and traction roll. With little or no carpet tracks in Japan Sawada unable to test said these FEMCA Championships where challenging due to surface with the changing tractions level further compounding that challenge. Winner of the Hobbywing Cup here in China earlier this year on asphalt, struggling to know which direction to go with his set-up, he did try the same set-up as team-mate Coelho but with a different driving style he would still have to learn to adjust that to his liking.
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Chassis – Infinity IF14-MID
ESC – ORCA OE1 MKII
Motor – ORCA M3 5.0T
Battery – ORCA 4290mAh
Tires – Rush (handout)
Radio/Servo – Futaba T10PX / CT702
Body – Xtreme Twister
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Chassis – Awesomatix A800R
ESC – Hobbywing G2S
Motor – Hobbywing G3 5.oT
Battery – Gens Ace 6100mAh
Tires – Rush (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa M17 / PGS-LHII
Body – Xtreme Twister
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