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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