2012 World final grid complete

The grid for the 1-hour Main that will decide who will be crowned the 5th 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Champion in Bangkok, Thailand later this evening has been finalised with two drivers progressing from the first of the Semi’s and the other 4 who join the Top 4 direct qualifiers coming from the second Semi.  Following a lengthy protest over the results of the 1/4 B final officials made the unusual decision to allow Francesco Tironi, who protested that the timing had missed his second lap, start as an additional 11th car on the grid for the 30-minute encounter.

Starting on pole position factory Xray driver Alexander Hagberg drove a faultless race to book his place in the main event ahead of Tironi with Paul Lemieux 3rd but unfortunately for the American the second Semi would, despite a rain shower that delayed the start, be the quicker race.  The top 2 in each Semi progress while the final two places on the grid are awarded to the two drivers with the next fastest race times.  There was cruel luck for KM Racing’s Dario Balestri, the Italian’s first set back came when he spun exiting the pits after his final stop after Peter Jovanovic’s Capricorn poured fuel all over the exit area due to a broken spring on the lid of his fuel tank.  Then in the final minute of the race while running third just ahead of Lemieux he went to pass a back marker who hit the rear of his H-K1 spinning it out and as the Italian tried to spin the car back in the right direction he hit a track barrier knocking off a front wheel.  Another to go out of the race in dramatic circumstances was Marc Rheinard who got fuel in his receiver on his last stop which sent the Capricorn crashing on full throttle into the fencing at the end of the pitlane.

In the second Semi 2006 World Champion Keisuke Fukuda took an easy win ahead of fellow Mugen driver & local hero Chavit Sirigupta with third going to Cheung Hang Hung, who started the day out in the 1/4 Final.  Finishing fourth with his HB, nitro touring car novice Andy Moore secured the final spot on the grid making it a great Worlds debut for the new R10 which has the biggest share of the grid with three cars.

Grid for Main Final
1. Teemu Leino – HB/LRP
2. Jilles Groskamp – Capricorn/Maxima
3. Atsushi Hara – HB/OS Speed
4. Meen Vejrak – KM Racing/Novarossi
5. Alexander Hagberg – Xray/Orcan
6. Keisuke Fukuda – Mugen/Picco
7. Chavit Sirigupta – Mugen/Maxima
8. Francesco Tironi – Capricorn/Capricorn
9. Cheung Hang Hung – KM Racing/Murnan
10.Andy Moore – HB/Maxima

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Lemieux, Pietsch & Shimo progress to Semis

US National Champion Paul Lemieux and 2010 World finalists Robert Pietsch & Takaaki Shimo are through to the Semi finals after finishing in the Top 3 of their respective 1/4 Finals.  In the first of the 20-minute encounters Lemieux’s No.2 Xray took the win ahead of Shimo’s Kyosho who started on pole position.  The big battle of the race was for third between the No.4 Kyosho of Sinnosuke Yokoyama and the Xray of Guiseppe D’Angelo who looked on target for his third bump of the event having started out in the 1/16 final yesterday.  With 2-laps to go however the young Japanese talent got passed into third bringing the Italian’s impressive run to an end. The race brought an end to the World Championship campaign of a number of top European drivers.  Despite contesting that the timing computer had missed one of his laps, an issue that has resulted in manual corrections for almost all the finals run so far, Capricorn driver Francesco Tironi was classified 5th.  European Championship runner up Mario Spinello could only managed 8th just ahead of former European Champion Dirk Wischnewski and Serpent designer Michael Salven, who while not having a good race following an early incident with Tironi, retired 1 minute from he end with a broken rear belt on his 747.

In the 1/4 A final Hong Kong KM Racing driver Cheung Hang Hung, who graduated from the 1/8 A final which he won, put in a very impressive performance to beat Mugen designer & 1:8 World Champion Pietsch.  There was heartbreak for his Mugen team-mate JJ Wang who while holding a comfortable third, the final bump up position to the Semis, crashed coming onto the straight in the final two minutes of the race.  Damaging his car being damaged he made his way back to the pits where his mechanic AI fixed it but there was not enough time to recover allowing Kyosho driver Shoki Takahata to progress.  Casualties of the race included Xray designer & 2008 podium finisher Martin Hudy who had the rear belt come off the pulleys, something he said he has never seen happen before, 2010 finalist Takumi Matsuda and 2010 runner-up Takehiro Terauchi.

Grid for Semi Final B
1. Alexander Hagberg – Xray/Orcan
2. Mark Green – Serpent/Novarossi
3. Dario Balestri – KM Racing/Novarossi
4. Peter Jovanovic – Capricorn/Capricorn
5. Daan Jacobs – Serpent/Max
6. Mongkolplan Lomrose – Mugen/Maxima
7. Marc Rheinard – Capricorn/Capricorn
8. Paul Lemieux – Xray/Max
9. Takaaki Shimo – Kyosho/OS Speed
10.Shinnosuke Yokoyama – Kyosho/OS Speed

Grid for Semi Final A
1. Keisuke Fukuda – Mugen/Picco
2. Chavit Sirigupta – Mugen/Maxima
3. Biagio Spataro – Xray/G-Mar
4. Andy Moore – HB/Maxima
5. Kyle Branson – Mugen/Sirio
6. Surikarn C – Xray/Max
7. Paphon Chanyasak – Xray/Maxima
8. Cheung Hang Hung – KM Racing/Murnan
8. Robert Pietsch – Mugen/Novarossi
10.Shoki Takahata – Kyosho/OS Speed

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

1/8 Finals Update

The eighth & final day of the 2012 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championships has been reached in Bangkok, Thailand, with the 1/8 Finals getting the big day’s action underway.  Overnight rain meant, despite great efforts of the RC Addict staff in drying the track, conditions for the first 5 minutes of the 20-minute encounter were very tricky with most of the cars struggling for traction.  Having bumped up from yesterday’s 1/16 B final it was the No.8 starting Xray of Giuseppe D’Angelo who would go on to take the win ahead of fellow Italian & 2008 World Championship Top 4 direct qualifier Francesco Tironi.  The winner of the Pre Worlds Warm-up race, Tironi started from pole but struggled with his Capricorn early in the race before progressing back towards the front.  Benefiting from the misfortune of Tanit K and European Electric Touring Car Champion Ronald Volker who both suffered flame outs while in contention to bump it, Serpent driver Yuya Sahashi took third to bump up to the 1/4 Finals.

In the 1/8 A Final, Hong Kong driver Cheung Hang Hung took the win from pole position ahead of 2010 Finalist Takumi Matsuda from Japan and yesterday’s 1/16 B final winner Rico Krober.  The same race saw the demise of 2008 World Champion Daniele Ielasi who started & finished 6th after the tyres on his Shepherd got chuncked in an incident with another car.  With Ielasi out this means just one former champion of the class remains in the event with Keisuke Fukuda due up later on today in the second of the Semi finals.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Lower finals complete, 52 drivers remain

The lower finals of the 1:10 Nitro Touring Car World Championships are completed and the six drivers who will progress to the big day here in Bangkok, Thailand, has been decided.  Running up to and including the 1/16th finals, Day 7 of the event has seen the entry whittled down from 122 drivers to 52.  First of the drivers to book his place through to the final day and technically still have a chance at becoming the fifth World Champion of the class was top Italian driver Giuseppe D’Angelo who from pole position won the 20-minute 1/16 B final comfortably from Malaysian driver Shah Mohd and 1:8 World Championship podium finisher Masao Tanaka.  The same race resulted in the demise of two well known drivers with factory Serpent driver Paolo Morganti, who suffered a flame out, and top Brazilian racer Eduardo Dulac who finished 6th & 7th respectively.

In the 1/16 A final, the last race of the day, 2012 European finalist Rico Kober took the win from fifth on the grid well clear of Brazil’s Hennique Winik and driver of the day Ludovic Leflon.  Frenchman Leflon, who is based at the RC Addict track where he works for r/c company Ride, qualified 7th in the 1/32 A final from where he went on to finish 2nd behind German Patrick Nahr to bump up to the 1/16th.

Despite a bad start to his second race of the day, Leflon who had Atsushi Hara and Hot Bodies R10 designer Miyashita as his pit crew, with Hara shouting plenty of encouragement at him, the rest of the race was less eventful and he worked his way up to third to claim a very popular final bump up position to the big day tomorrow and onto the back of the 1/8 A final grid.  Unfortunately for Shepherd team driver Nahr there was hard luck on the second time of asking as another strong performance came undone when he lost second gear.  Continuing with just one gear, he would miss the cut by 3 seconds despite his best efforts.  What has been a tough event for Team Shepherd, who made the podium with Marc Rheinard two years ago, company boss Patrick Schafer’s bad luck continued with an incident on the opening lap of the 1/32 B final that put him out on the spot with a broken car.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.

Leino is Thailand Worlds Top Qualifier

Having been the provisional TQ holder since topping the second round of qualifying three days ago, Team HB’s Teemu Leino made the best use of near perfect ‘rocket round’ conditions in the final qualifier in Thailand to produce a blistering 40-lap run securing himself & HB’s brand new R10 chassis the honour of being Top Qualifier for the fifth bi-annual Nitro Touring World Championships. Set to line up on pole position for Saturday’s World title deciding final at the beautiful RC Addict track, the Finnish star will be joined in the 60-minute encounter by Jilles Groskamp who was the only other driver to deliver a 40 lap run, his own HB team-mate Atsushi Hara and Thai ace Meen Vejrak with the other 6 drivers going to have to earn their way onto the grid via the Semi Finals.

Having complained of a lack of rear traction in his previous qualifying runs, Leino said his LRP powered R10 was near perfect for Q6 with an early spin the result of over excitement on his behalf.  Able to recover from the error, the former European Championship Top Qualifier said his biggest concern was being able to go the full distance having had some engine tuning issues in previous heats.  Pitting earlier than his rivals, Leino said for the second half of the run and particularly the last minute of the qualifier he had to adapt his driving style to try and save fuel, a change that paid dividends.  Like other successful Finnish racing stars Tommi Makkinen, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen, Leino took the achievement in his stride but did add he was pleased for the team that they have at least two of the three R10s in the final. Asked about that final he said he thinks the locals have a big advantage in terms of their knowledge of how the conditions can change over such a long race.  He also believes the weather conditions at the time of the final will be a huge factor.

The only driver to have managed a TQ run this week when he took the opening qualifier on Tuesday, Capricorn’s Groskamp said he went with the wrong choice of rear tyre on his Maxima powered LAB-C02.  Making the choice he said it was too safe as he thought the traction was going to be higher but it turned out to be not as good as it had been in practice when they ran at a similar time of the day.  Describing Leino’s pace as ‘just unbeatable’, the electric Touring Car World Champion was very happy with his own pace which in the end was 1.918 seconds off the eventual TQ time and said the most important thing was that he made the magical Top 4.  Asked about strategy for the final, Groskamp said he already knows his plan for the race but he wasn’t going to tell Red RC as he doesn’t want to inform his opposition of it!

Suffering a half spin and one moment when he got his OS Speed powered HB out of shape & up on two wheels, admitting both incidents were down to driver error, Hara’s nerves got the better of him in the first half of the race.  The Japanese ace said his R10 could maybe have done with just a little more steering but overall it was very stable and in the second part of the run he was very happy with his pace. Having tried to follow team-mate Leino after letting him passed he said he had to push too hard to keep up and with the risk of a mistake too high he changed tact to just trying to achieve a 40 lap run which he just missed out on by .149 of a second. Having been based in Bangkok for a number of years the Japanese ace knows the track well and thinks a one stop tyre strategy is going to be the most popular.  Happy with both the performance of his car and engine he said the final is going to be decided by making the right call on the diameter of the tyres something he will decide on after the 30-minute practice session the Top 4 will get Saturday morning.

Having missed out on making the final at the last World Championships in Texas when his then prototype KM Racing car stripped a gear while he was holding a bump up position in his Semi, Meen V was disappointed with his Q6 performance.  Going into the final qualifier sitting 3rd overall, the 27-year-old said he had the car for a TQ but pushed to hard forcing two errors and although he still bettered his time he got pushed backed to fourth by Hara. Describing the final as a ‘very different’ scenario to qualifying the former electric touring car World finalist said he wants to try a number of things on his Novarossi powered H-K1 Evo 2 in the Top 4 practice session.

Shaving almost 5-seconds of his Q2 time to move up to 5th just .114 seconds of Meen V’s time, 2006 World Champion Keisuke Fukuda will start from pole position in the Semi A final ahead of fellow Mugen driver 17-year-old local Chavit Sirigupta who jumped from 22nd at the end of Q5 to setting the 7th overall fastest time.  In the second of the Semi finals Alexander Hagberg, the fastest Xray in qualifying, will start from pole position having also improved his time by 5 seconds in Q6.  Knocking 9 seconds of his time to move up 10 spots in the final qualification ranking list Serpent’s Mark Green will start directly behind the Swede.

Two drivers to fall foul of the ‘rocket round’ where early TQ contenders Dario Balestri and nitro Worlds debutant Andy Moore.  Although both improved their times in Q6, they each made mistakes.  Balestri said having run his car too low in the penultimate qualifier he ran it two high in Q6 and this caused him to traction roll the Novarossi powered KM Racing H-K1.  With the cars running a lot softer than nitro drivers are used to, the 2-time former European Champion said for drivers like him and Robert Pietsch its hard to get used to this as when the tyres run low the set-up is so soft that the chassis bottoms out and the electric racers obviously have a solution for this.  Finishing up 10th fastest Balestri will start third in the Semi B.  Moore said in the warm-up everything felt good but when the actual heat started he drove too hard too early.  This led to a mistake that cost him crucial time without which he would have run a pace very similar to Hara, instead he dropped from fifth to 11th to line up fourth in the Semi A final.

For 2010 Top Qualifier Pietsch he will have his work cut out for him on Saturday as he will start down in the 1/4 finals having ended up 23rd fastest.  The Mugen designer and reigning 1:8 Onroad World Champion was on to improve his time but during his fuel stop his MTX-5 caught the pit wall as it was placed back on the track causing the engine to flameout.

A number of notable performances in the final qualifier were those of Peter Jovanovic, Kyle Branson and Daan Jacobs who all moved up into Semi final position.  Australian National Champion Jovanovic improved his Q5 pace by a full lap to take his Capricorn from 40th to 12th while multiple British National Champion Branson was just 12/1000ths behind to take his factory Sirio powered Mugen from 35th to 13th.  Dutch Serpent team driver Jacobs went from being 47th fastest to 14th and will join Jovanovic in the Semi B final.

Three time electric Touring Car World Champion Marc Rheinard managed to secure the final direct Semi qualifying position as he improved his time in Q6 to set the 18th fastest time denying American JJ Wang the spot by just less than half a second.  The top American qualifier Wang is on pole for the 1/4 B final while US National Champion Paul Lemieux will be hoping to progress from the 1/4 A final in which he starts second behind Japanese National Champion Takaaki Shimo.

Overall Qualifying Results – Top 18
1. Teemu Leino – HB/LRP – 40/10:11.351 (6)
2. Jilles Groskamp – Capricorn/Maxima – 40/10.13.269 (6)
3. Atsushi Hara – HB/OS Speed – 39/10:00.149 (6)
4. Meen Vejrak – KM Racing/Novarossi – 39/10:02.650 (6)
—————————
5. Keisuke Fukuda – Mugen/Picco – 39/10:02.764 (6)
6. Alexander Hagberg – Xray/Orcan – 39/10:03.305 (6)
7. Chavit Sirigupta – Mugen/Maxima – 39/10:03.414 (6)
8. Mark Green – Serpent/Novarossi – 39/10:04.707 (6)
9. Biagio Spataro – Xray/G-Mar – 39/10:04.915 (6)
10.Dario Balestri – KM Racing/Novarossi – 39/10:05.438 (6)
11.Andy Moore – HB/Maxima – 39/10:05.550 (6)
12.Peter Jovanovic – Capricorn/Capricorn – 39/10:05.743 (6)
13.Kyle Branson – Mugen/Sirio – 39/10:05.755 (6)
14.Daan Jacobs – Serpent/Max – 39/10:06.996 (6)
15.Surikarn C – Xray/Max – 39/10:09.556 (4)
16.Mongkolplan Lomrose – Mugen/Maxima – 39/10:09.576 (6)
17.Paphon Chanyasak – Xray/Maxima – 39/10:09.683 (6)
18.Marc Rheinard – Capricorn/Capricorn – 39/10:10.698 (6)

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.