Friday we arrived at the track and it was raining but at 14 o'clock it stopped raining and at 15.30 we start training.
It was my first practice with the new car. From the first lap I noticed that the car was good and it was faster in the big and small corners. Traugott Schaer and I worked a lot on the car on Friday, in order to have the right setup. At the end of the day the car was really good and fast.
Unfortunately at this event there wasn't so many drivers but level was good with drivers like Kurzbuch Simon, Depta Merlin and Gruber Toni.
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Saturday we tried other setup changes and the 5minutes. Doing the 5 minutes in Lostallo track is quite difficult. At the end we found the right combination between engine, muffler and manifold and I could do the 5mins. I did the 15 laps in 5 of 6 rounds of qualifying. Also the other XRAY driver, Pasquin Claudio, did his first race with the new RX8 and he could take the 2nd positon doing 15laps like me.
In the 1/10 there was the vice Swiss Champion Michael Schaefer fighting for the first positions and at the end of the qualifying round he finishes in 2nd place.
Qualifying 1/10:
1. GRUBER Toni 2. SCHAEFER Michael - XRAY NT1
3. NAUMOV Alexander - XRAY NT1
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FINALS:
In the 1/10 class it was an amazing final! Gruber took the lead and he kept it until the end of the race. But the battle for the 2nd place was amazing. Schaefer and Naumov fight for 45minutes and Schaefer who was in 3rd position passed the Russian driver Naumov in the last 2 laps finishing 2nd with just 0.2sec gap. Congratulations to the Schaefer team for this race!!
In the first semifinal 1/8 Merlin Depta wins in front of XRAY driver Pasquin Claudio. In the second semifinal I fight with Kurzbuch for the first place but after 10minutes Kurzbuch had a problem. So I win the semifinal in front of Toni Gruber.
For the Final we decided to change the tires two times, but the first time just the external ones. Unfortunately it was quite impossible for me to finish the race with just one tire change.
I started from the first position and I was leading the race in front of Kurzbuch. The car was really good and I tried all my best to push and gain some seconds on Kurzbuch but with one tire change more it was difficult to win the race. I finish the race in 2nd place behind Kurzbuch Simon.
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Final 1/8:
1. KURZBUCH Simon 2. PESENTI Mattia - XRAY RX8
3. TOROPCHENKOV Igor
4. KOSTADINOV Emil
5. GRUBER Toni
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Final 1/10:
1. GRUBER Toni 2. SCHAEFER Michael - XRAY NT1
3. NAUMOV Alexander - XRAY NT1
I want to thank T+M Models, XRAY, Picco, Runner Time, UFRA. Special thanks to Traugott Schaer for the support during the whole race and also to my father and pitman Sergio.
