March 2, 2018

Track Focus – Infinity Addict Circuit

Track Name – Infinity Addict Circuit
Owner – Pumin Songpaiboon
Country – Thailand
Location – Bangkok
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Asphalt

Infinity Addict Circuit, better know simply as RC Addict, is one of a number of RC tracks the city of Bangkok boasts and for the 7th time it hosts Asia’s best known race – the TITC or Thailand International Touring Car Championship to give it its full title.  Now in its 16th year, the 2018 edition of the TITC has once again attracted the world’s best touring car drivers with reigning champion Bruno Coelho the man they are all out to beat.  Having undergone a complete resurfacing ahead of last year’s event, the main change this year is a revised layout within the 55m wide by 27m deep track space.  Another less obvious change until you drive the track is the fact a number of bumps have developed in the asphalt over the last 12-months.  One big visual difference on arriving at the track is that the street based containers which housed a number of air conditioned pit areas for drivers have been removed leaving the former 200mm World Championship circuit more open looking.

Having been in Thailand for almost a week in preparation to attempt a claim a third consecutive TITC title, Coelho described the revised layout as ‘a little more technical than last year’ saying ‘the layout is very good, I like it and there is a lot of traction which I like too’.  Comfortably quickest in the seeding practice, the Xray driver did however say that while there was ‘one main bump which you could avoid’ last year, ‘now there are bumps everywhere’.  Not causing him any major issue he said the bumps did mean they had to do a lot of work in early practice on finding a good suspension set-up.

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January 7, 2018

Prumper wins A2 from Rheinard

Yannic Prumper has won the second A-Main at the DHI Cup, the Yokomo driver taking full advantage of a bad first lap from his team-mate and Top Qualifier Ronald Volker. Off the start Volker would run wide in the first corner allowing the second place starting Prumper to go to the front but things got worse as chaos broke out in the pack with Volker being given a Stop & Go penalty.  All this played into the hands of Prumper who quickly found himself with huge advantage but once Marc Rheinard got up to speed that lead was greatly reduced with it looking like the Infinity driver had the legs to beat his fellow German.  It wasn’t to be however as a mistake by Rheinard on the penultimate lap allowed Prumper hang on for the win.  Benefiting from the first lap dramas, Viktor Wilck would complete the Top 3 just holding off Elliott Harper.

‘I was lucky at the start’ said Prumper, adding, ‘Ronald had oversteer in the first corner and then in the 2nd corner flipped and crashed everyone. It was a perfect start for me’. He continued, ‘I took it easy because I had such a big gap but then Rheinard came after me.  I didn’t have the same pace as A1 but luckily he made a mistake and I could hold on for the win’.  With everything to be decided in A3, Prumper is confident he can get the speed back in his car by running ‘less rear toe in’ concluding, ‘it should be fine again’.

‘Its all open in A3’ was Rheinard’s view after A2.  The Infinity driver continued, ‘there was chaos at the start. Ronald spun out and then at the next left jumped the boards and there was a mess.  My body tucked and was rubbing at the front and causing a crazy noise. I had no steering. After that I just tried to get the best out of it and tried to catch Yannic but I ran out of time.  I was on his tail but then had a mistake coming onto the straight.’

Asked what had happened at the first corner, Volker replied, ‘this time I ran out of luck’.  Chasing an 8th DHI Cup title, the German said, ‘I swapped to my second set of tyres and went very wide in the first corner. I had way more oversteer than I expected and the next corner it was completely loose so to get out of the way I jumped the board but the referee called a Stop & Go which ended my race’.  Setting the fastest lap of the race, the World Champion said, ‘the decision to change to those tyre was correct as the car was better after 2-laps but for the next one I need to do extra warm up laps’.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.