| Race report by Erwin Luhur |
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| The Futaba OS Jakarta Open 2010 is a yearly event held at the Jakarta International Twin Circuit. It was a 2-day event but many drivers from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Australia arrived at the track 2 days beforehand for practice. The schedule for this race was 5 rounds of qualifying on Saturday, while Sunday had 1 more round of qualifying and the all the finals. |
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| Saturday (Qualifying Rounds 1, 2, 3 & 4) |
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The first qualifying round started at around 10:00AM after the opening ceremony. The weather was good and 3 rounds of qualifying were run successfully. However, in the late afternoon the weather suddenly changed and it started to rain during heat 3 of round 4. The rain stopped after about 15 minutes and track was completely wet.
As it was late in the afternoon and there was no sun, there was no chance for the track to dry properly. Therefore the Race Director decided to cancel the results of all heats of round 4 and continue with the last round of qualifying on Sunday. At the end of the day, there were six XRAY cars in the Top 10. Sadikin Sutrisno secured the TQ spot, Erwin Luhur was 2nd, Bowie Ginting was 4th, Suhaimi Abdul Wahab was 7th, M.Shah was 8th and Usman Halim was 10th. |
| Sunday (Qualifying Round 5 & Finals) |
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The last qualifying was run on Sunday with many drivers pushing hard to improve their qualifying position. However, traction was not that good in the morning and no XRAY drivers improved their times except for Abedey who bumped up to 9th. This result put six XRAY cars in the Grand Final.
Qualifying results were as follows:
1) Sadikin Sutrisno XRAY NT1
2) Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
3) Steven Jovanovic
4) Bowie Ginting XRAY NT1
5) Azri Amri
6) Fayakhun Andriadi
7) Suhaimi Abdul Wahab XRAY NT1
8) M. Shah XRAY NT1
9) Abedey XRAY NT1
10) Dimas Ardian |
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| Grand Final |
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It was a good start for both Sadikin Sutrisno and Erwin Luhur. They immediately took off and started to pull away from the pack. At about the 6th lap, Erwin Luhurâ™s engine was running too lean and he could not hold on to his 2nd position and was finally overtaken, dropping to 3rd position. His engine was richened during the next fuel stop. Meanwhile, Sadikin was driving with amazing speed and was leading the race until on the 70th lap when his 2nd speed stripped.
As the tire wear on this track was bad, all drivers would have to come in for a tire change at around the 70th lap. Sadikin took this opportunity to come in for a tire change and install a new 2nd speed gear. However, an unfortunate event happened again to Sadikin. His engine died during the tire and gear change and could not be restarted which cost lots of time. Coming out from the pit, Sadikinâ™s position dropped to 7th. Around this time, Erwin Luhur also came in for a tire change. However, an unfortunate event also happened to Erwin Luhur! His pit crew had accidentally put the tires on the wrong side of the car which made the car totally undriveable.
Erwin Luhur came into the pit again after 3 laps for another tire change to correct the problem. By this time his position had dropped to 8th. Coming out from the pit, the car still did not feel right and was not running on pace but Erwin Luhur continued to drive without realizing that the tires were still wrong and thus he never recovered throughout the race. In the meantime, Sadikin continued to drive hard, putting in very fast lap times and he managed to move up from 7th to 4th position. Bowie Ginting was driving a clean and consistent race and managed to move up to 2nd position. Abedey, M.Shah, and Suhaimi Abdul Wahab were also driving hard to regain their positions. |
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| Final results: |
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1) Steven Jovanovic
2) Bowie Ginting XRAY NT1
3) Fayakhun Andriadi
4) Sadikin Sutrisno XRAY NT1
5) Dimas Ardian
6) Abedey XRAY NT1
7) Erwin Luhur XRAY NT1
8) M.Shah XRAY NT1
9) Azri Amri
10) Suhaimi Abdul Wahab XRAY NT1
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