Video – 1/12th A-main Leg 2

Rheinard new 1:12 World Champion

Marc Rheinard is the new 1:12 World Champion after a stunning recovery drive in the second A-Main of the Florida event saw him take the win and enter the history books as the first driver to hold both a 1:12 and Touring Car World title. Ending the 6-year reign of Naoto Matsukura, the 3-time Touring Car World Champion becomes only the 7th different winner of IFMAR’s longest running electric World Championship and with it brings 1:12 stalwart chassis manufacturer CRC their first World title.

Winner of A1, Rheinard’s chances of deciding the 17th running of the championships early appeared to end very prematurely when on lap 3 he got hit by a hard charging Alexander Hagberg. Needing to be marshalled and dropping to 5th, while everyone turned their attention to Matsukura up front what was to come was nothing but spectacular from the German. Over coming a second incident on lap 9 which dropped him a further position, he found his rhythm working back to second by lap 33 before closing down on the outgoing champion forcing the Yokomo driver into a mistake on lap 43 of 54. Visually drained after the race by his ‘push to win’, Rheinard said it was the hardest he had ever driven. ‘Pissed’ at the incident with Hagberg, he said with 7-minutes still to run he knew it was all still to play for and he just took the approach of going for ‘all or nothing’. Taking ‘huge risks’, he said he ‘couldn’t have got any closer to the boards’. With Frank Calandra’s response to his driver’s amazing recovery unpublishable, the CRC boss finally getting the title he came close to winning two years ago with Andy Moore, Rheinard said the incident with Hagberg was just something that happens in 1:12 due to the speed of the cars with everything happening so fast and he acknowledged that there was no bad intentions from the Xray driver.

Again the fastest driver on the track further lowering the outright fastest lap time, Hagberg took the full blame for the hitting Rheinard. The Swede said he knew he had the fastest car on the track and his downfall was he was too eager to get to the front. Although he waited on Rheinard after the contact, the Swede was served with a Stop & Go penalty. Summing up an event that started off so strong, the European Champion said ‘thats how it is’ and it was ‘not meant to be’.

A understandably disappointed Matsukura, who has held the 1:12 World title since making his debut at the age of 15, said he had no response to Rheinard describing his friend as being ‘huge fast’. Having to ‘overdrive’ his R12 to try at stay ahead he said the car was a little difficult to drive resulting in his mistake that let Rheinard through for the win. Finishing the race in 4th position, the 21-year-old said he has no choice but to change his set-up as he needs the A3 win if he is to salvage at least a podium finish.

Behind Rheinard, Hideo Kitazawa took second place putting him strongly in contention to take the overall runner-up spot. Starting from 9th on the grid Team Associated’s Keven Hebert had an impressive drive to finish third having ran 2nd for a time before being passed by Rheinard and then Kitazawa.

View our event image gallery here.

Video – 1/12th A-main Leg 1

Rheinard takes A1 at 1:12 Worlds

Marc Rheinard has won the opening A-Main at the 1:12 World Championships in Florida. Starting from second on the grid, the CRC driver went to the front following an early mistake by Top Qualifier Naoto Matsukura and stayed there to take the 8-minute encounter from Alexander Hagberg and Hideo Kitazawa. Three laps after Rheinard took over the lead, defending champion Matsukura and Hagberg would get together the Japanese driving coming off worst and only able to recover to finish 5th.

Rheinard said after making a clean start he was just happy to wait for a mistake from Matsukura but that came a lot earlier than expected. Clipping the boards on lap 5, Matsukura’s Yokomo went wide on the right section of the track allowing Rheinard to slip through. The German said he got lucky again when Matsukura and Hagberg clashed allowing him to settle into a good rhythm but with a little more speed Hagberg could close the gap. Describing lapping traffic as the biggest challenge of the race he said got lucky there too as with Hagberg right back up with him he somehow managed to get through a group of cars but ‘Alex didn’t’.

Setting yet another new fastest outright lap time, posting an 8.487 on lap 16 of 54, Hagberg said he a ‘pretty good chance to win’ but just got ‘unlucky with traffic’. Commenting on his clash with Matsukura, race officials investigating video footage after the race but not issuing any penalties, the European Champion said the 3-time World Champion ran wide and with nowhere to go ended up making ‘side by side’ contact. Knowing he has clearly the fastest car of the 10-car A-Main grid, Hagberg said all he needs is better luck with traffic.

Matsukura was clearly frustrated that no penalty was issued as he felt it was very clear that Hagberg had pushed him off the track. Accepting the mistake that let Rheinard through was completely his own doing he said the move that let Hagberg through was forced upon him adding ‘why have referees if they are going to do nothing’.

Starting from 5th on the grid Kitazawa said his race to 3rd was ‘very hard’. Crashing on the first lap and dropping to 9th, the Morotech driver said he gave himself too much work to do. Working his way through the field ‘step by step’ he said the final 2-minutes of the race were very good and if he can put in a clean start in A2 he is confident he can run competitive at the front.

Unfortunately for World Championship debutant & full size racing car driver Donny Lia, he didn’t get the clean start he had hoped for and by lap 3 he was at the back of the field eventually finish 9th. The most experienced World finalist in the field, Jilles Groskamp made a promising start running fourth having started from 7th but getting caught up in the Matsukura/Hagberg clash it put his On-point chassis out of balance. Falling back into the pack, the Dutch ace pulled at the 5-minute mark after getting hit a number of times as drivers tried to pass him.

View our event image gallery here.