Coelho from Orlowski as free practice concludes at WC

Day 1 of the action at the IFMAR Touring Car World Championship in California has concluded with Bruno Coelho setting the pace from arch rival Michal Orlowski.  With 5-rounds of free practice making up the day’s action it was Coelho’s Xray that would set the fastest time in all but 1 round, the Schumacher of Orlowski the only other driver to top the time sheets when he set the fastest 3-consecutive laps in FP4 by just 0.009 of a second from Coelho.  With FP5 proving the fastest run of the day, it would be Marc Rheinard’s Awesomatix that would end up third quickest for the day ahead of Alexander Hagberg’s Xray with Axon’s Akio Sobue and Mugen Seiki’s Ronald Volker completing the Top 6 times on a windy day at the Finishline RC Raceway track.

‘It was a good day I would say’ was how back to back reigning World Champion Coelho summed Wednesday opening day of track action.  He continued, ‘Things are getting faster & faster and as we expected the traction is going up.  The cars are starting to be difficult to drive and you can see many people flip and making many mistakes.  We are getting closer to what we had here on our (pre race) practice so from now on it is all about small tenths every lap like trying to gain 0.001 every lap to be in the front at the end of 5-minutes and try not to do any mistakes’.  On the state of the traction at the end of the day, he said, ‘we are now doing very similar lap times to when we were here for testing so I would say I don’t really feel it is less grip but it feels just strange, it is different.  The cars are working in a different way but in the end they are doing the exactly the same as they did at the warm-up which was losing the rear the in the middle of the corner and through the round you go the more it happens.’  Asked if he would sum up the first day of the Worlds as Day as solid day, he said, ‘I would not say a solid-solid day but a very good one, a very good start I would say’.

Orlowski described his day as, ‘pretty good’, adding, ‘it seems like we found our way back to where we wanted to be because we got a little bit lost and towards the end it was very strong pace in FP4 & FP5.’  The reigning 1:12 World Champion who is chasing his first title in Touring Car after a very strong 2024 season continued, ‘Bruno is fast as well but he hasn’t done a full 5-minute run yet so I am feeling good for tomorrow.  We made wrong change for the last one so we will go back for tomorrow.  We just need to stay on top of things depending how the track changes, conditions today were quite windy and cold but we expect it to be less windy throughout the week and a little warmer, probably the grip will be coming up with more cars driving on it.  Less dust and more grip, that is where our car is the best.’

Touring Car’s more decorated World Champion, Rheinard felt he ended the day ‘not far off’ adding ‘but my driving is not great yet, I think I can still improve there.’  Asked in what way the reigning European Champion said, ‘my consistency, to try to stay longer on throttle sometimes and I am overshooting a lot so I am not happy with my driving but the car is getting better.  I think we still need to find something but so far so good.’  On the track conditions, he said, ‘From Run 1 to now the track improved for sure but let’s see how it goes for tomorrow when it is going to be cold again.  We don’t know if the traction is going to come up again quickly or if it will be like this morning, I don’t know.  Hopefully it is going to be traction right away.’

Asked how he was feeling at the end of the first day of action Hagberg replied, ‘Good, I think I have been in the mix all day, at least in the Top 5 pretty much all day.’  The Swede continued, ‘We are still working on the set-up and fine tuning it to find a bit more pace and try to move up into the Top 3 maybe.  It will be interesting to see the pace over a 5-minute run instead of just 3-laps.  I am fairly happy but I think there is more potential to unlock for tomorrow.  Asked where he felt he could improve, the former 1:12 World Champion said, ‘we are trying to find balance between rear traction and front end grip and to fine tune the roll centre, small changes to find the best balance with the car.  I think we are close and just need to work on the details.’

Winner of September’s official ISTC World Championship Warm-up race ahead of Hagberg, Sobue was another who felt his car was good but there was room for better from the driver.  The Japanese former podium finisher said, ‘Overall my day was good but I need to improve my driving more and work on better lines.  On a good run it is good but sometimes I go off line and it is super dusty so I need to tidy this up.’  Asked about his prototype Axon, he said, ‘This car is really good and the pace is good.’  Making ‘just small changes’ each round he admitted they resulted in ‘not so big differences’ but he feels the biggest gains for tomorrow are to come from his driving and a hopeful dying down of today’s wind.

Volker summed up free practice with, ‘It was a very intense day running two cars all the time to get more data.’  The former World Champion continued, ‘I had some rough runs but also some very good ones but overall I am very happy to be out there with the new car and I think we are going in the right direction.’  Ending up P6, he said that time was perfect explaining, ‘In the last one when the track was at its best I didn’t have three good laps in a row but otherwise I feel pretty confident.’  Asked if he felt he was in the mix he replied, ‘Actually I am not sure about this because I didn’t check so much results today as I was focused on my own car getting the feeling for it but at least I feel there is a high chance to be competitive.  The track was very tricky today with the wind so I think this was the lowest grip we will have for the week and the track should grip up day by day, I feel we are competitive with our new package’.

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Practice underway at Worlds, Coelho sets early pace

After of months of preparations & testing by manufacturer & drivers, the IFMAR 1:10 Electric Touring Car World Championships are finally underway in California with defending champion Bruno Coelho setting the early pace at Finishline RC Raceway.  With 5 rounds of practice on today’s schedule the biggest take after the opening two rounds of practice was grip, or more specifically the lack of it, the track completely different to what drivers had expected after previous visits to the track.  With the first practice round very much a systems check for drivers, issues with noise on the timing loop caused by a 7000 volt electric fence resulted in over an hour of a delay before drivers resumed with the second practice run.  With Coelho’s Xray fastest in both rounds, his 3-consecutive laps of the second practice a 33.146, it was Worlds Warm-up Race winner Akio Sobue who was closest on pace running a best time of 33.379 with Axon team-mate Hayato Ishioka completing the Top 3.  One of the favourites coming into this World Championship Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski set the fourth fastest pace ahead of Mugen’s Ronald Volker, Xray’s Alexander Hagberg and the Awesomatix of Marc Rheinard.

Chasing a third consecutive ISTC World title, asked about his first laps of the track Coelho responded, ‘The track is completely different than we were here’ joking ‘so what were we doing here for 2-weeks basically’.  He continued, ‘It is what it is and we need to adapt and change things to make the car works for the conditions but our car is working pretty good.  I am pretty happy about the start but it is how it finishes not how it starts so we will try to make the correct decision and keep on top of the conditions.’  Asked about the traction levels, he said, ‘the traction is coming up slow, it was never this low when we were here and it is also super cold, so basically nothing similar to what we had before’.  While waiting to see how the track evolves, the Portuguese ace who 10-years ago on US burst onto the touring car scene with his 2014 Worlds podium finish, said, ‘we will make small changes and try not make any wrong stuff so we still have a good flow on the track and with car and can keep it on the wheels.’

Summing up his first two outings on the track this morning, Sobue said, ‘My car feels good but for sure a different feeling from the Warm-up Race.  The track condition and temperature are a bit different and tyre is cold in the beginning but my car feels good.’  Running a prototype car which is the bases for a new car from Axon, the Japanese manufacturer describing it as 90% different to its currently available TC10 but also highlighting they don’t expected it to be released for some time, the 2022 Worlds podium finisher expects the track to improve but ‘slowly’, highlighting the wind is bringing dust back on to the track.  For the 3 remaining practices ahead of this evening’s official opening ceremony, Sobue said he plans to try some some small car changes as opposed to anything drastic based on the current low traction.

Winner of the 1up Racing West Coast Invitational at the track back in May, reacting to his two practice runs Orlowski said, ‘The track is completely different to what we know, the grip is much less and I don’t know if it is going to change or not so we need to move away from what we tested here and try some stuff we know from Europe and make some adjustments now.  We didn’t change much for FP2 and the track doesn’t seem to improve much a lot.  It seems it is gripping up differently to testing so a lot of changes but that is how the Worlds are, you prepare as much as you can and the conditions are totally different to what you expect.’  Asked his plan for the rest of the first day’s action, the Polish driver replied, ‘We need to see how the track evolves but we also need to make change because we can’t expect the track to come to the conditions of testing, it’s a risk, it’s a decision we need to make, we either wait and see or we need to adjust and see and come back in case it does.  At the moment it doesn’t seem like it will change and be like testing.’

Here with a brand new car from Mugen Seiki, a very upbeat Volker said, ‘I’m very happy with new car as it feels like a game changer, it’s a big improvement with its innovative design.  When I came pre-testing I wasn’t as confident with the Pre-Worlds car but now I think anything is possible.  I think the track conditions and everything is tricky and uncertain so not much time to get the car dialled in but I feel already it is pretty good’ adding, ‘the track is very easy to learn and drive’.  I didn’t come here for Warm-up Race when they had high traction but I surprised the traction is not so high so its uncertain for the day what the track will do but as always its the same for everyone’.  On making changes to his MTC3 prototype, the 2016 World Champion replied, ‘there is a lot to learn but the basic set-up from Robert’s (Pietsch) mind is already working great and he already knows what to change by watching my runs.’

Coming into these World Championships after a confident boosting European Championship win this year, asked how he found early practice Rheinard’s response was, ‘Not so good so far, feels like no grip, it’s like on ice so I don’t know.  When ever we practiced before the car always felt good but now in the low grip it doesn’t.  Let’s hope the traction comes up otherwise I think we are a bit lost.  Asked about the low traction, it quite windy this morning in Bakersfield, the Germany replied, ‘the wind for sure makes it worse but in general the traction is pretty bad and not what we are used.  Today is going to be pretty shitty with the wind, tomorrow should be better.  On changes to his car, the 3-time ISTC World Champion said, ‘I think it is more like the tyre prep right now because you can’t get so much from the car.’

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