‘A perfect day’ for Groskamp at TITC

Jilles Groskamp pulled off ‘a perfect day’ on the opening day of qualifying at the TITC in Bangkok, the Infinity driver TQ’ing all three rounds at the Infinity Addict Circuit. A race title that eludes the former World Champion, who has been runner-up on three occasions at the famous Asia event, Groskamp would end the day as he started, again being the only driver to post a 20-lap run. Improving position every run, the closest challenger in the third round would be Nicolas Lee, the Yokomo driver missing out on a 20-lap pace by just over 6/10ths of a second.  One of Infinity’s latest signing to their new EP team, former TRF driver Akio Sobue would complete the Top 3, a safe run paying dividends. Unfortunately the tyre struggles that some drivers have been faced with showed no signs of abating with Bruno Coelho, Ronald Volker and Marc Rheinard all clearly struggling on the track with a lack of traction. Summing up the struggles while talking to Coelho, Volker said you know something is very wrong when you look and see ‘Marc (Rheinard), (Yukijiro) Umino and Francesco (Martini) talking together’.  For Volker and Rheinard, their tyre issues will mean they drop out of the top heat for the remaining three qualifiers as reseeding is done based on the best two of today’s three rounds.  While Coelho remains in the top 3, sitting 3rd overall, the defending champion is not happy with the tyre situation going as far as changing from an aluminium chassis car to a carbon chassis with ARS as he ‘needed prove to himself it was not the car’.  He said the carbon car ‘was even worse’.

One of the few drivers smiling throughout the day, Groskamp said after Q3, ‘I changed tyres for this round and the car still feels great, I have super good traction’. He continued, ‘I push at the beginning to get a gap and then I can control the race by listening to the timing announcements.  It’s somehow unreal how well it goes, 2-seconds over Nicolas at this level is a lot’.  Admitting ‘some good guys have a problem’ he said, ‘For sure something is wrong.  Maybe the sweet spot for the tyre is hard to find and I’ve been lucky to find it.  It is almost unbelievable that at the TITC someone is so much faster.  I hope it’s clearly a set-up thing.  I’m happy for Akio and Chavit that they got a good run but I feel sorry for Marc because he was super fast in practice’.  He concluded ‘for sure today was a perfect day for me’.

Running the same set of tyres as he ran to P3 in Q2, while happy with getting a second for the round Lee said, ‘I was too slow compared to Jilles’.   The World Championship finalist continued, ‘the car is good its just Jilles is too fast snd we need to talk about it tonight and come up with something to try for tomorrow’.   While it wouldn’t have affected his result, Lee said there was a little confusion at the start of the heat.  Expecting to start third based on his result of the previous heat the 25-year-old went off as the third car as did Alexander Hagberg, the order actually based on the overall standings after two rounds.

Enjoying his first Top 6 run in the day’s closing qualifier, Sobue said he had to drive safe after lasting just over a minute in Q2 before rolling his SMJ chassis and pulling off.  The Japanese driver said he also ‘drove super smooth’ to get the tyre to last the 5-minutes with the car getting ‘too loose if he pushes hard early on’. Holding sixth in the overnight standings, the multiple Worlds Finalist said the plan of attack for tomorrow is to ‘keep driving more easy’.

Doing well representing the host nation at the TITC, Chavit Saligupta would also end the day with his best run, going one better than Q1 to record a P4.  With electronics issues in seeding practice putting him in the third fastest heat, the Bangkok driver hasn’t let this hinder him but admits his reseeding into the fastest heat for tomorrow is sure to help him improve on his current pace.  Describing his SMJ as ‘not very easy to drive at the beginning’ due to the track being ‘a lot hotter’ he said with a minute to go his ‘tyres had overheated’.

Running new tyres, Hagberg said he was ‘surprised by the first lap that Nicolas went in front of me’ adding ‘it cost me time on the first lap’.  Losing over a second to Groskamp over the first lap his fastest lap would not come until lap three, all those finishing ahead of him opening the heat with their fastest lap.  This incident aside, the former Nitro Touring Car World Champion said, ‘basically I’m too slow, the car is safe but off the pace and we need to work on the set-up’.   The Swedish driver added, ‘I didn’t really have a problem with tyres and I think today was hotter than previous days and we need to work on a better set-up for that’.

Making it four Infinity drivers in the Top 6, Andy Moore managed a P6 just ahead of Awesomatix’ Ryan Maker.  The 2006 World Champion said, ‘It was just a safe run because I needed it for the reseeding’ adding ‘it was not sparklingly fast but the car was consistent & balanced.’   Running in the second fastest heat, opening the day with a P8 in Q1, the British driver would suffer a ‘hyper donut’ on the opening lap of Q2 and while he would try to continue to break in the tyres after four laps he pulled off suspecting a problem with his car.  With problems being found, he ran a brand new set of tyres on his prototype SMJ saying these where not as good at the beginning as broken in tyres but he got the result he needed to put himself in the top heat for tomorrow.

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Groskamp again in Q2

Jilles Groskamp has backed up what he himself described as a ‘surprising’ TQ in the opening qualifier with another in the hot midday conditions at Infinity Addict Circuit.  While a slower run, the Infinity driver would top the times by an even larger margin despite running his Q1 tyres for a second time while his closest rival Bruno Coelho was on a new set of tyres.  Also on new tyres Nicholas Lee would complete the Top 3 despite suffering a body tuck on his opening lap but again it was a troubled round for his Yokomo team-mate Ronald Volker who ended up 19th.  Suffering a glitch at the end of the 5-minutes, the World Champion said even before that he wasn’t even able to run a Top 10 pace, his second set of tyres not proving any better than his Q1 set.

‘What can I say, the car was absolutely amazing’, said Groskamp who again opened the qualifier with the fastest lap.  Setting a 15.062 lap on the used tyres, the best his rivals could manage was a 15.396 – the opening lap of Volker, with Coelho managing a 15.402 despite opting to run new tyres.  Commenting on his significant advantage, the Dutch born and now Bangkok based driver said, ‘I don’t know why the car is so much faster but I don’t even have to push it.  I am the only one with proper traction’.  Trying to shed some light on why, apart from the general view that he was lucky with the set of tyres he got, he is faster he said, ‘I think in practice a lot of drivers focused on 3-laps when my focus was to get the car good for 5-minutes in the hot day time conditions.  I was actually upset by my lap times at night when the track was cool but I knew the main racing was during the day.  I also think the carbon chassis is much better in the day time’.

Returning to the Xray container after Q2, Coelho was again clearly frustrated saying, ‘It’s a joke.  You do one weeks work to prepare and get a good set-up and now the car just doesn’t work.  Its not just me, Ronald and Rheinard too, everyone is super slow.  Volker is not even able to make the Top 10.  It can only be the tyres’.   He continued, ‘For sure Jilles is a good driver and I don’t want to disrespect him but now with used tyres he is 3-seconds faster than everyone.  Something is not right’.

Making a change to his BD8, Lee said the car was good but he lost too much time in the first three laps.  Suffering a body tuck at the start meaning a 16.4 opening lap, he said he then had to let team-mate Naoki Akiyama through before having to overtake him again once he got back up to speed.  He said after that the car was good and the aim for the closing qualifier of the day is to get the heat off to a better start.

Going from being less than a second off the TQ in Q1, to being 5-seconds off Groskamp, Alexander Hagberg would post the 4th fastest time.  Like Groskamp, the Xray driver would re-run his Q1 tyres and while ‘at the beginning they were not bad, they then dropped off quite a bit’ with him adding he was ‘luckily able to hold on for fourth’.  With two runs on his tyres and set to run new tyres for Q3 the former TITC Champion said, ‘I really hope I don’t have a problem with tyres’ adding the batch of the tyres for racing ‘physically feels harder than what we used in practice’.

Heading the Awesomatix team in Bangkok, their Finnish star Viljami Kutvanen having to cancel his trip due to illness, Ryan Maker would post a P2 in the second qualifier. Only 21st in Q1, the Aussie described the improvement as ‘surprising’ adding a new set of tyres was the main contributing factor.   While he would also make a lot of changes to his Muchmore powered A800, he said the car had a lot more traction on the second set of tyres.  Behind Maker, Akiyama would again complete the Top 6, 2/10ths up on the Tamiya of Atsushi Hara.

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Groskamp takes opening qualifier at TITC

Jilles Groskamp took the opening round of qualifying at the TITC in Bangkok this morning, the Infinity driver putting in the only 20-lap run at Infinity Addict Circuit.  Sixth fastest in yesterday’s seeding practice, Groskamp opened with a blistering 14.9 second lap to take control of the qualifier to TQ the round from the Xray’s of Alexander Hagberg and Bruno Coelho.  While Nicolas Lee would finish as the fastest Yokomo with a P4 for the round it was the lack of pace of his team-mate Ronald Volker that was one of  the biggest surprises of the qualifier with the World Champion only 13th fastest.

‘Surprising’ was Groskamp’s reaction to the opening qualifier which even left the race announcer using some colourful language to express how impressed he was by the Dutch driver’s run. Groskamp continued, ‘from practice I knew I had a good set-up for the warm conditions and knew my car was pretty good but I didn’t know it was that fast’.  Running a prototype SMJ chassis, Infinity’s leading electric touring car drivers each using different parts on their cars,  the 2012 World Champion said, ‘while others struggled with understeer my car was on another level compared to the rest.  I had so much traction’.  The only driver to get below a 15-second lap time, he said ‘the car was spot on from the start and that was how I was able to do the 14.9 which I never managed before’.  Looking to Q2, he said ‘I focused on a set-up for the day time and it is really really good. I just hope the other sets of tyres are the same because I hear some complaints from others about their sets’.

Commenting on his run, Hagberg said, ‘the track was better than expected. Normally its dusty but there was good traction’.  The 2015 TITC Champion said he planned to make a ‘tiny change to try and get more pace’ but added, ‘tyre strategy is going to be the big thing’.  The Swede continued, ‘I have to decide when is best to run new or used’ and ‘we need to work on this (the strategy) together as a team’.

‘Was not so good’ was how an unimpressed Coelho summed up Q1 after finishing 1.7-seconds off his tam-mate Hagberg.  The defending champion continued, ‘we didn’t change anything.  I had a very good pace before and now I have zero traction.  I must have got a set of tyres that are not good’.  Adding, ‘the car was undriveable’, the ETS Champion said, ‘we had some sets that where not so good in practice so we will leave the car the same and see if a different set of tyres is better’.

Matching his seeding position with P4, Lee was another driver who was disappointed with his Q1 performance.  The Singapore driver said, ‘the car was pushing from the start.  I didn’t change anything so I’m putting it down to the track changed’.  Expecting grip to be higher for Q2 he said, ‘we will change something for the next one’.   Team-mate Volker summed up his opening run with ‘I have no idea what happened’.  He added, ‘the car is not that bad that I am 7-seconds off.  We’ll change the car plus we’ll make sure that set of tyres wont be used again’.

Setting the 5th fastest time despite running in the 3rd fastest heat, Infinity driver Chavit Saligupta summed up his performance as ‘OK’.  The 22-year-old from Bangkok described his car as being ‘a little difficult for the 1st minute’ which forced him to ‘take it easy’.  Asked what he felt the issue was he replied ‘for me the grip felt lower than yesterday’.  For Q2 he plans to leave the car unchanged and on the same set of tyres feeling the track for the second run should have better traction.

Completing the Top 6, Yokomo protege Naoki Akiyama said his BD8 was ‘super loose after the 1st minute’. Despite ending up 4-seconds off the TQ pace, the 17-year-old plans to leave his car unchanged for Q2 and like Saligupta will run the same set of tyres for a second time, drivers getting four sets of the controlled Sweep tyres for the 6 rounds of qualifying.

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