Round 3 of the Swiss Championship was held in Montagny on the June 26-27 weekend. It was right in between my university exams at that time, but I was nonetheless (or maybe âśespeciallyâť) looking forward to a relaxing race weekend away from my papers. The weather was nice and hot all weekend and there were about 65 amateur drivers and 52 expert drivers attending.
When we came to the track, the huge sloped corner that had been added since last year caught our eye. It looked great and we couldnâ™t wait to drive it!
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I had chosen to use the setup that had worked so well during the last few races, but mix it a bit with the setup from last yearâ™s Montagny race where I finished 3rd.
The car worked brilliantly ever since the first practice round and I only tried some different roll-bars and tyres throughout Saturday. The track was just a pleasure to drive with its many totally different surfaces, corners and exciting fast and banked sections. When you had a clean line through the banked corner you could drive its exit at full throttle and I had goosebumps every time I managed to do it well. Qualifying went well and even though I made some mistakes, I was always in the Top 4 except for the last round. The third round went particularly well and I missed TQ by less than 2 seconds because of a minor mistake. In the fourth round I tried different tyres but that was a disaster. The tyres were fine but in the banked corner they deformed too much and the car rolled over every time. At the end of the day I was in 3rd and very happy.
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On Sunday the semi-final went well. Only one time the car went straight ahead after landing on a jump, which I thought to be due to an electrical problem or something⦠but then it worked again. After the final the servos and radio box were very hot so I decided to cut some holes into the front and rear of the body sidepods for more cooling of the RC components. Also there was a misunderstanding between me and my pit team and I came into the pits a lap early which meant that I had to save fuel for the rest of the semi-final. I went off throttle really early on the straight and this saved a lot of fuel. In the end, Didier Perrin won the semi-final and I finished less than 2 seconds behind him.
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I started the final from 2nd as none of the other semi-final drivers were faster. Immediately Didier and I drove away from the rest of the pack and we fought for the lead in the first 15 minutes. He was a bit faster but also made some mistakes. But I made a few mistakes too and so it was very very interesting. This being such a high-grip track, we both ran fuel stops between 6 and 7 minutes. In the semi-final I drove more than 8 minutes on a tank but I decided Iâ™d rather not drive in fuel-conservation mode but rather make one more stop. Also, tyre wear was very heavy because 2/3rd of the surface had been hard packed with concrete or something like it.
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Finally after about 20 minutes Didierâ™s tyres gave up and his front tyres were completely bald. My tyres held up better and my lap times and the feel of the car didnâ™t change noticeably through the final. I was able to pass him for good this time and build up a lead. At the end I was bringing the car home and avoiding the lapped cars and their battles, finishing the race almost a lap up. It was great to win in Montagny since I absolutely love the track. We will have our last round there too this year and I hope it will be there for a number of years to come even though it is under threat of the nearby landfill.
Iâ™d like to thank my mechanics Etienne Kaser and Robin Minkler and my Sponsors XRAY, RB, Power-Save-Racing and GQ tyres.
