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.

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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.

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Hagberg tops final qualifier

Having set the pace in practice and then struggled in early qualifying Alexander Hagberg finally returned to form to take the 6th & final round of qualifying at the 1:12 World Championship in Florida. Posting the fastest 8-minute run of the event, the Xray driver just missed out on a 55-lap run by 1/10th of a second as he topped the time sheets by 2-seconds from Donny Lia. Having sat 7th in the overnight standings the TQ run will see the Swede start the A-Main from 4th on the grd behind Lia, Marc Rheinard and Top Qualifier Naoto Matsukura. Posting his best qualifier, Jilles Groskamp would ran the third fastest time of Q6 to go from sitting 21st overnight to securing his 6th consecutive 1:12 World Championship A-Main appearance, the 2012 podium finisher set to start 7th.

‘Really good’ was how Hagberg, who further improved on his fastet outright lap of the event with a 8.591 lap time, described his final qualifier. Having found his way again in the penultimate qualifier after tightening up the rear hub brace on his X12, the European Champion said the car was super easy to drive this morning. While he would lose a little traction towards the end of the run he is confident he has a good chance for the finals despite starting from fourth, adding mistakes are inevitable.

Having made a set-up change to his LRP speedo, Lia said it took him some time to get into the rhythm of the adjusted power band but once he did his Top Rebel felt really good. Admitting 3rd on the grid was more than he every thought possible he said just being in the A-Main on his World Championship debut was ‘awesome’. Liking very much the track layout and with his car working well he said his aim is to run three clean Mains and see what comes to him after that.

Groskamp said he had more traction today and while he lost some time having to open up for both Hagberg and Lia, he still doesn’t have the outright pace of the leaders. Happy to continue his run of Worlds A-Main starts that began here in Florida in 2004, he said starting 7th on the grid would probably make little difference as he predicts ‘a lot of carnage’ in the finals.

Recording the fourth fastest time defending champion & Top Qualifier Matsukura summed up his Q6 as ‘not good’, the Yokomo driver adding he had ‘many mistakes’. Pleased with his R12 C3.1, planning to run it as is for the first final, the 21-year-old said the track today ‘felt more aggressive’ to drive.

After hitting the board for a second time, Rheinard decided to pull off before he ‘destroyed the car’. The CRC driver was on a TQ before his first off saying his car was fast but more difficult to drive today. Starting from second on the grid, when asked about the main the German predicted ‘ugly finals’ saying mistakes on the tight track where going to cause pile ups so the race was pretty much wide open.

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