2025 1:8 GT World C/ship Chassis Focus Index

While some had their reservations regarding how the cars would perform around the large Club de Aeromodelos de Chile track and in particular its long straight, it would ultimately prove a huge hit with drivers at the IFMAR 1:8 GT Worlds and showcase the impressive speeds at which 1:8 GT cars now run.  The third running of the 1:8 GT World Championship, it was great to see such a diversity of manufacturers make up the World Championship deciding 1-hour final with 7 different brands forming the 11 car grid.  A very popular brand in South America, it was Italian manufacturer WIRC who was best represented with three cars, Brazil’s Flavio Elias going from winning the last chance final to finishing on the podium.  A brand which at the last World Championships was a solo personal project of its driver Michael Kocher, the Andrea Contarini designed car only offered then to customers as a eGT kit, Raptor has since through the involvement of Gimar become a major player with their star driver Alessio Mazzeo doing the World Championship double in Santiago.  In Nitro GT their two cars on the grid would go on to achieve a 1-2 finish.

Taking the TQ honours, Serpent would also have two cars in the final.  With one car each Senesi Motorsport, Xray and IGT8 completed the line up of different brands.  In terms of engines Gimar was the most popular with it powering 5-drivers.  While absent from the event as a car brand, Italy’s Genius Racing, who were Top Qualifiers in Sydney, proved the most popular body with 8 drivers running their GT Fury shell.  With Red RC able to make the very enjoyable and welcoming trip to South America to cover the GT Worlds for  a second time thanks to the support of Sweep tyres, Energy fuel, and 2023 World Champions Hong Nor, over the condensed schedule we managed to photograph 8 cars from 6 different manufacturers for our ‘Chassis Focus’ including the Top 2 finishers in the inaugural IFMAR 1:8 Electric GT World Championship.  As the supplier of the controlled tyre with is D-SPEC GT 40, Sweep came in for a lot of driver phrase for how its tyre performance as his Energy who fuelled everyone for the event.

Nitro GT

Alessio Mazzeo – Raptor (Q2/World Champion)

Flavio Elias – WIRC (Q5/P3)

Andrea Catanzani – Serpent (TQ/P4)

Natanaele Senesi – Senesi Motorsport (Q3/P5)

Alex D’angelo – Capricorn (Q4/P10)

Diego Morganti – IGT8 (Q7/P18)

Electric GT

Alessio Mazzeo – Raptor (TQ/World Champion)

Natanaele Senesi – Senesi Motorsport (Q2/P2)