Day 1 complete in Beijing, Xray in control

Day 1 of the Electric Touring Car World Championships is complete in Beijing with Xray having controlled proceedings.  Opening the day at the Fengtai R/C Model Area asphalt track at the top of the time sheets, after 6 rounds of free practice it was still an Xray 1,2 with Bruno Coelho fastest from Alexander Hagberg.  While the pair would fail to improve on their 3-fastest lap time from FP4, Coelho would still top the times sheets for the final practice ahead of Tamiya’s Chrishopher Krapp. Krapp’s FP6 time would see him the best of the rest as he turned around his performance over the day to finish P3 ahead of TRF team-mate Marc Rheinard although the gap was substantial at over half a second.  Unfortunately for defending champion Naoto Matsukura he couldn’t replicate the turn around of his team-mates ending up on page 2 of the time sheets with the 39th fastest time.  The Japanese driver said despite making changes to his set-up each run his car ‘still feels the same’.

‘It was a good day today’, was how Coelho summed up Day 1 of what is only his second touring car World Championship.  Finishing runner-up on his first attempt in Florida two years ago, the Portuguese driver added, ‘almost all runs we were on top showing we are strong in all conditions’.  Describing his Hobbywing powered T4 2017 as ‘good’ he said ‘there is still room to improve’ and they are ‘still working on it’.  Running two cars over the 5-minute practice, when asked about 5-minute pace he replied, ‘I think it should be fine.  I did 7 laps with each car and at that point the drop off is not so big’.

Only 5th fastest in the final practice, Hagberg was a lot less happier than earlier in the day saying, ‘we seem to be going backwards’.  Just under 4/10th of a second of his team-mate’s 3-lap pace, the 2014 Finalist continued, ‘things we tested didn’t work so we go back to our earlier set-up for the morning’.

‘We made a big improvement over the day’ was Krapp’s reaction to his strong finish to the day.  The multiple World’s finalist added, ‘we worked good as a team and focused on shock set-up which I think is really important on this track’.  On driving the car with the new shock set-up he said, ‘it did not feel so fast but was easy to drive’ and that combination helped him improve his 3-laps by almost 1.2-seconds. The German however added he is ‘still not super happy’ as with running 2-cars he has only run two & a half minutes with each so they don’t know how it is for the full 5-minutes which has him a little concerned.

Rheinard’s reply to how Day 1 went was, ‘we are not so far off now’.  He continued, ‘we found the right direction as Krappy showed in the last one and his car is really good now’.  Having switched between two cars, chassis thickness the key difference between them, the 3-time Champion said he is ‘still not sure which car to use for the race’.  Not a fan of the rule that requires a driver to mark a single chassis for the race, he is still undecided on which car to present to technical inspection adding ‘the difference (between cars) is not so big’.

Only fifth fastest, a low position by his standards, Ronald Volker said the day was spent ‘testing a lot of things’.   The Yokomo driver continued, ‘we found positive and negative stuff’ with ‘testing 2 cars a big help in collecting set-ups’.  Having to mark one car for tomorrow he said he will discuss with the team the best set-up options and put them onto his race car adding ‘I’m looking forward to improving tomorrow’.  Asked about where he thinks he is over the length of a full qualifier he replied ‘its better for 5-minute but I still want to find the .1, .2 were missing over a single lap’.

Completing the Top 6 with his time from FP5, Marc Fischer said ‘In the end the day was quite OK’.  The factory Capricorn driver said , ‘its only 3-laps and 5-minutes will be a little different but I hope we are the same pace in qualifying’.  With it ‘easy’ to get his three lap pace, the German said the car felt good for the 7 laps he ran before switching car.  Having preferred the car fitted with the optional chassis earlier in practice, he said now he prefers the standard car but fitted with the optional bridge top deck.  Planning to tech this car, the only other change will be to fit a race body.

Star of this year’s ETS race in Luxembourg, his home track, VBC driver Lucas Urbain would end the day P7. The French driver said, ‘It went better than expected’. Running a new car, having only done a little testing with it in Luxembourg before coming out to Beijing, he said it is ‘way better than the previous car’.  Asked about the car he said, ‘is the same as Yannic Prumper used to good effect at the ETS in Trencin’, where he took it to 4th at the season finale last month. Unfortunately due to illness Prumper had to cancel his trip to China.  Declaring the car ‘really good on 3-laps’ he added, ‘but thats it as the drop off is too much after 2-minutes’. Feeling its a ‘balance issue’, he said the car starts with a little understeer and gets worse and so tonight they will try to come up with a set-up change that improves it for 5-minutes.  Behind Urbain, the Top 10 was completed by three former World Champions with Team Infinity drivers Andy Moore and Jilles Groskamp sandwiching the Kyosho of Atsushi Hara.

View our event image gallery here.

Coelho continues to top practice at WC

Bruno Coelho continues to set the pace at the Electric Touring Car World Championship in Beijing, the Xray driver continuing to the top the time sheets with four of the opening day’s six free practice runs complete.  Taking things up a notch in FP4, he continues to be quickest from team Alexander Hagberg but with a bigger advantage, his best lap over 1/10th of a second faster and his fastest 3-consecutive laps almost 4/10th better.  Behind the Xray’s, after a ‘horrible’ start to practice, Marc Rheinard has started to find some speed with the Tamiya driver completing the Top 3 ahead of Andy Moore, the Team Infinity driver making good use of his black anodised Xray.  Unfortunately for reigning World Champion Naoto Matsukura is poor start hasn’t improved and the newly crowned 1:12 World Champion finds himself 44th fastest.

‘We improved the car a lot’ was Coelho’s reaction after the latest practice.  He continued, ‘we changed the set-up for the third practice and it was worse so we changed it again for the last one and it was better’.  Also changing his Hobbywing speedo settings he said this gave ‘a better feeling’.   Runner-up to Matsukura at the last Worlds, the newly crowned ETS champion continued, ‘Every round everyone is improving so we can’t stop trying to improve the car’.  Looking to the next practice he said, ‘I now have good forward traction but we are just lacking a little steering so we will work on that’.

With his confidence having taken a visible boost after a strong opening practice, Hagberg said, ‘I’m really enjoying driving out there’.  Using FP4 to run used tyres on both his cars, changing between them half way through the 5-minute run, the former European Champion said the car is ‘really good’ on both new and used tyres. He added, ‘I’m really happy with my package at this point’.  For his next run he plans to make a few small changes as well as try different diff hardnesses.

‘Getting better’ was Rheinard’s reaction to his improvement. Having gone to the top of the timing screen in the first half of the practice heat on the change over of cars he dropped back to third he added, ‘but Xray’s 2nd cars were faster’.  He continued, ‘we still need to find something so I will try a different car with a different set-up for the next one’.  Asked what the issue is the triple World champion said, ‘its hard to find a balance. The track is strange.  Sometimes it feels like you are sliding on a film on the track and then you have grip’.  Having been the lead TRF driver after two rounds holding P6, Christopher Krapp would improve on that time in FP4 but back drop back to P9 ahead of Serpent’s Viktor Wilck who had a spectacular off at the end of the straight in the fourth round and has been unable to improve on his FP2 time.

‘Definitely more at home here than with the 1:12 scale car’, was how Moore summed up his practice so far.  Having raced at the recent Nitro Touring Car World Championship in Italy where Team Infinity debuted their first 200mm car, the 2006 World Champion said considering the little running he has done in electric recently he is very happy with how things are going.  Adding, ‘It would be nice to have had more time with the car’ he said a spring change for the last one felt better.  Suffering an electric glitch, which caused his first car to shut down in FP4 forcing him to switch to his second car earlier than planned he said they are working through the problem.  In terms of set-up, the British driver said he has ‘a few more ideas he wants to try out’ over the day’s final two runs.  Unfortunately team-mate and 2012 World Champion Jilles Groskamp is having problems and find himself only 23rd.

Finding himself in P5 having started out as the closest challenger to the Xrays, Ronald Volker said, ‘like the others we are still running two cars and while I got some steering I was looking for I have lost traction’.  ‘Still looking for a better balance’, the Yokomo driver said, ‘the gap to the guys in front is not getting less so we have got to do more changes’.

Completing the Top 6, Atsushi Hara said his pace ‘is ok’.  Competing at the last round of the ETS at the Hudy Arena in Slovakia, the former Champion and legend of the sport said, ‘there I saw a lot what the top guys are doing.  I used the information to test a lot of things at RC Addict’.  While running his Kyosho as a privateer, the Thai based Japanese driver has the car’s designer Yoshiyuki Chikuba sitting next to him for support.  Having put the ‘focus more on chassis flex’ he said their predictions on the traction level has been ‘correct’.  Using the first three practice rounds to ‘just drive around and learn the track’, he said for the last one he ‘drove a little more harder’ and it was good but concluded, ‘I need a little more corner speed’.  Behind Hara, Marc Fischer took his Capricorn to the seventh fastest time ahead of Yokomo’s Nicolas Lee who failed to better his Fp3.

View our event image gallery here.