Chassis – Awesomatix A800R
ESC – Orca OE1 Mark II
Motor – Orca Modtreme 2 4.5T
Battery – Orca 6090mah
Tires (handout) – Sweep
Radio/Servo – Sanwa m17 / MKS 575 SL
Body – Xtreme Twister Speciale
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Ronald Volker is the top seed going into qualifying at the TITC, the Mugen Seiki driver fastest over 3-laps from defending Champion Bruno Coelho. With just a single round of seeding practice determining the heats for the four rounds of qualifying, most drivers completed the minimum laps possible needed to secure a place in the top while also saving tyres. Running in the second fastest practice heat due to his B-Final appearance at last year’s event, Volker took two goes at setting a time. It was his second 3-consecutive laps that counted with him fastest by 16/100th of a second over Coelho, the Xray driver making just one attempt to post a time. One of the few drivers to run the entire 5-minutes along with team-mate Akio Sobue, Axon’s Hayato Ishioka set the third fastest time with 2-time TITC winner Sobue ending up 7th. Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura posted the fourth fastest time ahead of the Awesomatix pairing of Lucas Urbain and Marc Rheinard.
Describing his current form as ‘so far the best TITC I’ve had at RC Addict ever’, Volker added, ‘I was a bit nervous about just getting 3-laps in. It was the only seeding run we get so there was always a chance something might go wrong and you are not in the top’. Explaining that this year’s new layout means the track’s bumps are more of an issue he said that during the early days of practice it was chaos with cars flying off the track, he himself destroying two body shells. Using a new compound Sweep tyre this year, grip is very high with most drivers battling traction roll something that is exacerbated when you add in the bumps. While fastest over 3-laps, Volker said his MTC2R has been fast all week and that is something he is quick to attribute to Robert Pietsch, his mechanic this week and the designer of the car. ‘Last year I really struggled to get the car to work and even though I worked hard for the B Main I still struggled. Robert is able to think out of the box and has prepared a great car for me. I am very happy with how it is working but I know there is a long way to get and I know with this event it is difficult to judge how it will go’.
Coelho said, ‘Overall we are 2nd so I am happy for now. I knew I need to make no mistakes to make sure I would be in the Top 10. I did just 3-laps because I might need the tyres later in the race. The car was trying to flip as the traction was high but I’m sure it was the same for all.’ Asked about the tyre, the World Champion said, ‘the tyre doesn’t drop off too much over the 5-minutes but it has way to much grip for the conditions. I think they should go a little harder next year.’ Chasing a record equaling fourth TITC win this weekend, asked about his 5-minute pace for qualifying, the opening two rounds making up Friday’s schedule after a round of free practice, Coelho replied, ‘I am pretty confident for the 5-minutes tomorrow.’
Finishing on the podium last year, Ishioka described this year’s track as ‘super technical’ and while he welcomed this year’s tyre and the fact each driver gets to glue their own sets, he said they offer a ‘little to much grip’. On his new TC10/3 chassis, the World Championship finalist described the car as ‘working well’ and for tomorrow he will start out qualifying with an unchanged set-up.
Matsukura was pleased with his run to the fourth fastest time having struggled earlier with traction roll. The former World Champion for whom the TITC title has evaded him, described his car as feeling a ‘little bouncy’ to drive and while he was able to improve it between the final practice and the seeding round he believes qualifying will be challenging. ‘5-minutes will be difficult for me so I will try to make no mistakes and get points. I think many drivers will have mistakes so if I can keep my run clean I should be able to collect good points.’ Another to pull up in the seeding round to safe tyres, drivers having to use one of their 5-race allocated sets in seeding, he said, ‘We have a practice round in the morning so we will use this to how car is now working over 5-minutes’.
‘OK I guess’, was Urbain’s reaction to his seeding effort. His first international event as a full time professional driver and only his second TITC, he said, ‘To be honest, for 2 or 3 days of practice it was really good but today it’s a lot worse and I have less grip. This shows my lack of experience of this race.’ The French driver continued, ‘3-laps is OK but 5-minutes is not great. The balance shifts to a lot of understeer at the end of the runs. Seeding I am where I wanted but Marc is much faster over 5-minutes which is not ideal when he is starting behind. Anyway tomorrow is another day.’
Playing a waiting game to start his 3-laps, Rheinard explained, ‘I waited 1 minute 30 to start my run as I knew everyone was going to stop early and that would give me a more calm track to get in a good clean 3-laps.’ Asked how he felt his three laps went the multiple World Champion replied, ‘I was up on two wheels a few times.’ Asked about his pace over a complete run, he said, ‘the run before it was pretty good over the 5-minutes but the track changes everyday so you never know. I’m happy to be in the top heat and I’m confident for a 5-minute run’.
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Chassis – Xpress XQ11 “Hara Edition”
ESC – Hobbywing XR10 Pro
Motor – Hobbywing V10 Xerun 4.5T
Battery – Fido 5900mah
Tires (handout) – Sweep
Radio/Servo – Futaba 10PX / Futaba CT702
Body – Lens Bodies Ghigli 2.0
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Red RC attended its first TITC in 2017. It was always a bucket list event but it was the meaning of the win on the Sunday that really endorsed for us that this is one of the greatest touring car races. The emotion of the win was powerful and that winner was Bruno Coelho who gave us the headline for our final report that read, ‘Coelho takes TITC with ‘hardest win’ of career’. Seven years on and catching up with Bruno before he took his flight to the Thai capital to defend his title, the World Champion still rates the race as ‘one of the best in the World’ adding it is ‘a completely different race to any other’. Chasing a record equaling fourth win that would put him on par with TITC Master Atsushi Hara, a driver widely acknowledged for putting the race on the world stage, as we will find out Bruno isn’t driven by records but very much being the best on the day. He knows this is one race where ever detail is critical be successful at ‘one of the most challenging races’ in the world while on the flip side offers ‘one of the best race atmosphere’ you can experience.
Bruno’s first TITC was in 2015 when the race returned to the RC Addict track and it has called it permanent home ever since. He qualified second behind Xray team-mate Alexander Hagberg who would go on to win while rough finals left the Portuguese driver 5th. It was a learning experience but a year later he returned to take the first of his victories. Defending his title in 2017, he failed to convert the TQ in 2018 and in 2019 he qualified & finished 4th as Hagberg became a multiple Champion of the legendary Asian race. Not attending the event in 2020, Bruno returned after the event’s Covid hiatus with a dominant 2023 performance but in a race where the finer details are critical Bruno takes on the challenge without one key element in his all conquering touring car campaigns – mechanic Francesco Martini. ‘I have no Franci this time as he has business commitments. We had the flights booked already but it was something very important and he can’t come. I will have Martin (Hudy) as my mechanic so it’s not a huge problem. Obviously Martin is super good, he designed the car, but myself and Franci collected all the data together in the past. I don’t want it to sound bad against Martin but myself & Fanci have a special working relationship and at a race as tough as TITC it’s these little details of knowing what to do and when can make a difference. So not having him at the race is a negative for me.’
Asked why the race is held in such high regard by drivers and one that they so badly want to win, Bruno explained, ‘How the track changes each run because of the hot temperatures makes it so challenging. In the morning it might be 28 degrees in the shade but in the sun the track temperature could be 50-60 degrees. You need to drive different to not overheat the tyres. You need to have two good set-ups for different times of the day. Every small detail is important even the electronics because they also have to deal with the high temperatures’. A race where all the team drivers come almost a week before the race to test on the track he said, ‘Everyone has plenty of time to test so we have no excuses for the race. It’s one of the most challenging races, we give all we can give. People can’t say you are here for 2-weeks and they were only able to do 2-days testing like they said in Gubbio (2020 ISTC World Championship). Everyone gets loads of practice so that’s one less excuse we all have’. He continued, ‘From practice you decide your plan for different times of the day. In the morning there is a lot of traction, mid day low traction and evening is rocket round. You think you are ready for the race and then someone finds something good for their car and you are stressed. At the end if I finish 5th I have no excuses, I was not good enough.’
On the chance of becoming one of the races most successful drivers and whether it is motivation for a fourth win, Coelho response was quite typical of a sports person at the peak their career, ‘I get asked a lot about races I have won and how many times I have won certain races but I really don’t count wins, I go to win every race. I don’t think about the past, I prefer to move forward and try to be better for the next race. If you live off your past success you don’t strive to be better for the future.’
With tyres always a topic that comes into play not just at the TITC but most touring car races these days it seems, Bruno questions the limit of 5 sets of Sweep tyres this year. I think for the importance of the race they should not limit tyres as it could be a negative thing. You will have maybe five drivers in a heat because others are saving tyres. I think for (race) series limited tyres is good but for a single race like TITC it’s one race and everyone should give their all and not be forced to pick and choose when to or not to run because of saving tyres. I think like the Worlds it causes more confusion than benefits. He also feels this years new layout will be hard on tyres, ‘the most critical part of the track is the end of the straight when you are on full brake. In the hot conditions this is going to burn the tyres’.
While his Hobbywing powered Xray package is much the same as previous years, one significant change from 12-months ago is the radio Bruno will use. ‘I used to use Sanwa but since September I have been racing with Futaba. I like the physical feel of the brake. It has more range and I can get the feeling of a normal brake. The Sanwa brake is mechanical short so you have to adjust on the radio settings. With the Futaba you can manage more with the finger and I like this.’
2024 TITC coverage presented by Hobbywing
Hobbywing is China’s earliest national-level high-tech enterprise engaged in R&D, production and sales of brushless power systems for UAV and RC models. Committed to provide high power density brushless power systems for global customers, Hobbywing and the TITC have a deep-rooted history. As early as 2009, Hobbywing’s ESC made its first appearance at TITC with this year marking a 15 years history of collaboration. Except for the three years during the COVID-19 period, Hobbywing has consistently offered on-site technical guidance to its users at TITC, ensuring the optimal performance of their power systems and providing steadfast support for drivers, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the competition.
While racers are not known for always agreeing, one thing all the professional team drivers do agree on is that the TITC is the most difficult race in the world! After the World Championships, this annual Bangkok based race has become the most significant electric touring car title drivers can secure. Racing at the TITC you are putting yourself on a World class stage with the best in the business with the additional unique element of every driver having had the opportunity to complete days of pre race practice, something that eats into your excuses when the race doesn’t go your way. So for these reasons it might not be the first race of choice at which to make your international race debut as the newest member of the full time professional driver ranks but that is exactly what Lucas Urbain will do later this week. At the age of 34, Urbain will tell you himself that the opportunity to become a full time professional racer ‘came out of the blue’ adding ‘the idea was never a topic we talked about’. An announcement on February 2nd however from Awesomatix changed all that and now this popular French racer switches from a decade of working in signalling with the French railway network to living every young RC racers dream of travelling the world racing and getting paid for the privilege. Lucas’ journey to becoming a ‘Pro’ is an interesting one that started in 2000 when a certain Adrien Bertin came to his home town of Longwy and gave a demo with a 1:8 Nitro Onroad car. That was the moment Lucas was ‘blown away’ by radio controlled cars and with his parents getting him his first RC car from a local hobby shop for Christmas that year, the seed was sown for his 24-year long road to obtaining the job description of Pro RC Racer.
Roll on a few years and the next significant moment occurred with Marc Rheinard’s first of two key parts in this story. Seeing Rheinard race for the first time at the International Orion Carpet Race in Switzerland, Lucas was immediately impressed by the German’s driving ability. ‘It was like he had a magnetic force pulling him to the apex. It looked like magic how precise he was. I was hooked by that. Marc was the main guy and in his prime at that time.’ Red RC’s first dealings with Lucas would come in 2009 in Luxembourg when, driving a Losi JRSX-R, he TQ’d the final round of qualifying at the European Championship. It was a result that helped Jilles Groskamp take the overall TQ from where he would become the Champion. With this performance getting him a stint with Yokomo, he said nothing good came from that partnership except the start of a great friendship with the Japanese company’s then star driver Ronald Volker. From Yokomo he moved to VBC Racing and from there onto Awesomatix in 2018 where Rheinard would play his second part in the story. ‘When I joined Awesomatix they had just got rid of Viljami (Kutvonen) as their full time driver. It had been a bad experience for them so they were in no rush to recruit a replacement. I was just making it into A-Mains at the time. I was definitely not Pro level and no one cared about my results. After some time with the team I started to improve. There were a combination of factors. I was getting better with age and I put in the work to get the goals and when I saw the work pay off I wanted to do more. Working better, eating better, sleeping better plus the support from Oleg (Babich) and Max (Mächler) were a huge part of my improvements as a driver. Simple things like Max organising where to have dinner let me focus on racing.’
Announced at the 2017 TITC that Rheinard had joined Infinity after 22-years racing Tamiyas, after 2-seasons the new partnership with Infinity came to an end. With the multiple World Champion on the market, Awesomatix seized the opportunity and acquired his services but Lucas wasn’t impressed. ‘Hiring Marc pissed me off. It was like a stone in my shoe but it made me more motivated to work harder to challenge him. It was big motivation for me to get better.’ Asked about their relationship in the team, Lucas replied, ‘we have very different personalities.’ This new found motivation netted Lucas his first ETS wins on both carpet and asphalt making him now a prominent force in the team. After his real job prevented Lucas from attending ETS Aigen and the European Championship ‘Max was pissed’. ‘I had a contract with my job that for safety reasons they don’t allow me to have a side job but once work stopped me from racing Max said, ‘What about if we made you professional.’ For me it was no risk at all to go Pro. A sabbatical is pretty easy with a state company so it was no risk at all to give it a go, although maybe it might be a different situation in 2-3 years time.’
Asked his feelings about making his International Pro debut at TITC, Lucas was very open and honest in his reply, ‘I am blown away by the reaction to me going Pro. It’s a big deal. I’m a very anxious person and I worry a lot. Will I be able to do the job. It is shiny and pretty at the beginning. For now it is all good.’ He continued, ‘I did TITC once before and had a shot at the A-Main but ended up in B. I know the vibe there. This year the objective is to make A-Main but so much can happen with track conditions and I will be in lower practice group because I have no recent results from the race. Many guys have experience from 10 years of TITC so they have good management when it comes to the changing conditions. We aim to be very methodical. The right method and people can give me an edge. Max is going but not racing, so this is a big plus. He can watch what others are doing. We will have quite a few pair of eyes to help us.’
2024 TITC coverage presented by Hobbywing
Hobbywing is China’s earliest national-level high-tech enterprise engaged in R&D, production and sales of brushless power systems for UAV and RC models. Committed to provide high power density brushless power systems for global customers, Hobbywing and the TITC have a deep-rooted history. As early as 2009, Hobbywing’s ESC made its first appearance at TITC with this year marking a 15 years history of collaboration. Except for the three years during the COVID-19 period, Hobbywing has consistently offered on-site technical guidance to its users at TITC, ensuring the optimal performance of their power systems and providing steadfast support for drivers, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the competition.