Volker again Q2 as Zhuo reduces gap

Ronald Volker made it two from 2 in qualifying at the inaugural Foshan Invitation RC Championship but Chinese driver Vening Zhuo got even closer to the German as they both became the only drivers to produce 23-lap runs at the GDC Indoor track.  Having taken the opening qualifier by a comfortable 3-second margin, in Q2 of four Volker’s advantage was less than 1.3-seconds as Zhuo put in another clean round and Volker continued to deal with the traffic of the second fastest heat.  Surviving a moment with Simon Nicholson, when the Australian got his Yokomo up on two wheels and both cars touched, Top Seed Yugo Nagashima would get third for his efforts ahead of the Xray of Jerry Dai.  His Xray team-mate Marco Ma, third in the opening round, had been on his a strong run but suffered a late incident that dropped him from the top of the timing screens and to 7th for the round.

‘So far so good.  I’m glad to get another TQ run in but it is still a weird feeling watching the top heat when I am marshalling’, was how Volker summed up the second qualifier.   Improving his overall pace by around 3-seconds, he said his car ‘started great’ but as the run went on he started to lose steering.  Suffering ‘another bump’ with lapped traffic, the former World Champion plans to make a small adjustment to his MTC2R to get more steering for the penultimate qualifier when he has the potential to secure the overall TQ.

Opting to not make anything changes to his Awesomatix after Q1, Zhuo said he benefited from the higher traction but in terms of the car’s performance it was a repeat of Q1 with the car getting lose after 2-minutes.   Nothing too serious that he can’t deal with, he said he do one more run with the car as it is and then use the fourth and final qualifier to ‘try something’ in preparation for tomorrow’s triple finals.

Nagashima again described his run as ‘not good’.   The Japanese driver explained, ‘the first 1-minute the car is too stable and then after 2 or 3 minutes it was no steering.  There is no balance’.  Looking to Q3 the Xpress driver said he needs to try something different on the set-up but cautioned the change would be ‘not small but not too big either’.

Opening qualifying with a P5 and now backing it up with a P4, 19-year-old Dai summed up his event so far going ‘quite good’.  The Shanghai based driver, who is on his second visit to the track having attended its opening race back in October, said he hasn’t changed his car set-up today and instead has been waiting for the tyres to come in.  The only adjustment he said he has done is on his radio adjusting his steering curve from 10% to minus 7.  Admitting to a preference to racing outdoors on asphalt he said the left side of the track has been casing him some difficulty but overall he pleased with how he’s been performing on the carpet.

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Volker takes opening qualifier at FIRC

After his struggles in seeding practice, Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker bounced back in qualifying to take the opening round at the Foshan Invitational RC Championship in China ahead of the Awesomatix of Vening Zhuo and Xray’s Marco Ma.  Finding himself in the second fastest after his lap times dropped by 2-seconds from free practice, Volker had a busy opening qualifying run as he avoided the traffic with late contact with a lapped car costing him some time.  Despite this the German was 3-seconds clear of Zhuo as his main rivals Yugo Nagashima and Simon Nicholson both had issues.   The Top Seed for qualifying Nagashima lead away the top heat but a mistake by the Japanese driver in the chicane meant his Xpress needed marshalling and with 4.5 seconds lost he finish P4.   Starting directly behind Nagashima, Nicholson looked to benefit from the mistake but inside the final 30-seconds the Yokomo drivers pinion came undone and his run was over.

‘I was right about my tyres not being wet enough’, was Volker’s reaction to his TQ run having reported after the seeding round that he believed his drop off in pace was due to a faulty additive bottle.  He continued, ‘It was a bit difficult with the traffic.  I lost half a second on the last lap with contact and overall it was difficult to stay focused for the run having to watch out for traffic.  I don’t know if they will do a regroup or not but it would be better for all of us’.  On his car, the former World Champion said he ‘wont change anything’ as he expects the handout Sweep tyre to get better each run adding ‘everyone is going to improve and get faster’.

Zhuo said his car started really good but after 2-minutes started to lose grip.  Overall he said it was clean run, but the Chinese driver feels there is more time to come by improving the consistency of the car over 5-minutes and he will discuss with his mechanic what changes they can make to reduce the drop off in grip.

18-year-old Ma said he had ‘some mistakes’ in his opening effort adding his car felt a little unstable at times.  Chinese National Vice Champion in Modified Touring Car and National Champion in 1:8 GT,  the promising Chinese racer plans to make changes for Q2 to try improve the car while also trying to tidy up his driving. In terms of outright pace Ma’s fastest lap was just 1/100th of second of Volker.

Clearly frustrated with his crash after riding the dots too much and flipped his XQ11, something he was quick to point out was ‘my mistake’, Nagashima said the Q1 track conditions didn’t suit his car like in seeding practice and he struggled with a lack of grip.  The 28-year-old said he we wasn’t sure if he would change the car for Q2 feeling he might just need to work on his driving having made changes to his ESC  yesterday which he might need to adapt more too.

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Nagashima tops seeding at FIRC

Xpress factory team driver Yugo Nagashima is the top seed at the inaugural Foshan Invitational Championship in China, the Japanese driver topping the single seeding round ahead of Yokomo’s Simon Nicholson.  The biggest international RC event to be held in China post Covid attracting 129 entries to the newly opened GDC Indoor track, drivers faced tough conditions this morning with Ronald Volker struggling significantly having set the pace in free practice yesterday.  Low traction and brand new hand out Sweep tyres saw most drivers out their drifting skills to the test.  Making it a good start to the event for Xpress, Hong Kong driver Eric Lam completed the Top 3 ahead of newly crowned Chinese National Champion Rocket Zhang as the driver now face into four rounds of qualifying, with two to count.

Having over half a second of an advantage on Nicholson over his fastest 3-consecutive laps, Nagashima was pleased with how his car working in the challenging conditions.  Having run a prototype car from Xpress in yesterday’s practice, he reverted to the Hong Kong manufacturer’s standard production car this morning saying ‘it was really good and suited the conditions’.  Describing himself as ‘a fan of carpet tracks’ he admitted to finding the right side of the GDC track layout no to his liking saying it is ‘difficult to get the throttle right in that section’.   Asked about changes for Q1, he said ‘there is a big difference between new tyres and the following runs so I will make no changes for now’.

Fresh from his ZeroFive race win over Volker in Hong Kong last weekend, Nicholson described controlled practice as ‘OK’.  He continued ‘on new tyres its hand but hopefully it gets better’.   The Australian Champion said the track layout is ‘fun’ but like Nagashima said, ‘the right side chicane is difficult, its high speed and its a fine line through it’.  Looking to qualifying he plans to leave his car set-up unchanged saying, ‘I’ll leave it and see what second run tyres feel like and then go from there with any changes I might need to make’.

Lam described his Top 3 performance as ‘lucky’ saying it was an above par result for his driving level.  The 34-year-old said his car set-up was perfect for the conditions describing it as ‘stable’ with his fast laps ‘so so’ in terms of outright pace.  Planning to keep his car the same for Q1 he said the plan is to ‘get it done and then see where everything is at over the 5-minutes’.

Summing up his P4 in seeding performance with ‘so far so good’, Zhang said he took a gamble for the seeding that paid off.  Having tested a carbon chassis on his Awesomatix yesterday but found it left him with no grip, he arrived at the track this morning ready to race with an alu chassis.  Watching the groups running ahead of him complete their seeding run he could see conditions were difficult so he decided to take the gamble and go back to a carbon chassis ‘just to find some grip, and it worked’.  Planning to stick with the carbon chassis for Q1, he plans to make a small set-up change which he hopes with the tyres improving on the second run will give him a good car over the 5-minutes.

Looking like it was his first day driving an RC car or that he is contemplating a switch to RC drifting Volker was clearly shocked by how bad his car was for seeding.  The Mugen Seiki driver said, ‘Yesterday I was running 12.4 second laps, today I can only do 14.4.  I know the car is great so I hope thing automatically sort themselves out.  The balance was terrible’.  Asked what caused the huge drop off in performance, the German said, ‘I think I had a bad bottle (of additive) because when I looked at everyone else’s tyres they were much wetter than mine even though I was trying to apply more additive.  We have just one set of tyres for the event I hope that was the reason for it being so bad’.

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