| Race report by Reno Savoya |
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| After the last two events being shortened or canceled due to poor weather conditions, the VAMP Pierrefeu decided to go for another National event. This time the weather was gorgeous all weekend long. Located in southern France in the famous area of wine producers, Pierrefeu is always the theater of really nice events and competitions. |
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The track is well known as one of the most technical and specific in France, typical Euro style⦠high speed, high grip, all what I like.
The club worked a lot to get the track as flat as possible before the event, but the first practice was really dusty and slippery. As I knew these conditions very well, we decided to stick to the set-up I came up with, using thick diffs and hard swaybars, ready for high grip. I started with 10-10-5 in the diffs with the Active Diff™ and 90° ramp in the front.
The second practice was a little bit better as I opted for Exagon tires, blue compound. By then I was really close to the best lap times of the Aigoin brothers, so I was really happy and confident for the following event. |
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| I managed to get three perfect qualification rounds without crashing. I tried many things on the car in order to make it faster and easier to drive for the mains. I ended up 3rd, just a few tenths of a second slower than Jerome Aigoin in every round. In round 3, I came really close to TQ, but Rayan Medjoubi crossed the line in 2nd. |
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| The whole team worked very hard to adapt their own set-ups to the conditions. Unfortunately, no-one was able to get into the semi, as the level was super high (as usual in southern France). With many local drivers knowing this track by heart, itâ™s hard to compete against them. |
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| Everything went perfectly for me in semi. I started 2nd and stayed quite close to Yannick during the 20 minutes. I lost some time when I crashed at the end of the straightaway, the most technical part of the track. |
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| In the main, I decided to go with a longer wheelbase for more stability at high speed and better cornering speed. It was a great change as my car was perfect! I was the fastest on the track, and made the best lap time of the weekend! Unfortunately, I crashed many times in the first part of the race, and ended up 3rd. Then, I decided to save some time in the right side of the track, but clear it safely every lap. It paid as I was closing the gap on the two leaders. Yannick was in the lead but suffered from problems during pit stops. I managed to get up to 2nd just behind Jerome Aigoin. |
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| The last 15 minutes of the race were very intense! My throttle servo was starting to shut down periodically and made me lose precious seconds that I had to take back by pushing the car even more! At 3 minutes before the end, I took back the lead and increased the gap on 2nd place. Unfortunately, my servo shut down once more in the last lap, and I lost 4 seconds which allowed Jerome to come back super close! We went like this to the finish line, separated by only 0.6 seconds. It was a great race for us drivers, mechanics, and also the public. My car was rocket fast, but also really easy to drive and very effective. |
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| Final result: |
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1. Reno Savoya XRAY XB9
2. Jerome Aigoin
3. Yannick Aigoin
4. Rayan Medjoubi
5. Jerome Sartel
6. Nicolas Rodriguez
7. Julien Lattanzio
8. Nicolas Reynaud
9. Jerome Delcourt
10. Tony Robin
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| Teaser shot from Automodelisme.com |
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| Photo courtesy: rbproducts.com and automodelisme.com. |
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