On January 23â“29 the Nitro 200mm World Championship warm-up race was held at the world-famous RC Addict track in Bangkok, Thailand. The track was perfectly prepared by the organizing team. Due to the low number of entries, everybody got a lot of track time at this medium-size, high-traction racetrack.
For me it was the first time I had to used tire additive in nitro racing, so I struggled quite a lot in practice and qualification. My standard set-up of no-additive tires did not work at all, so I on managed to qualify in 5th position just outside the Top 4. After qualifying I changed my set-up completely and the car was finally a little bit better to drive but still not perfect.
(click to enlarge)
The semi-final was quite uneventful, as the track was super slippery and I had to take it easy and get the win with a 3-lap lead over 2nd place.
For the 1-hour main final, I decided to run without a tire change because I want to do something different than my main competitors. The start went quite well and I quickly went into 2nd place behind Robert Pietsch. Robert pulled away from the field but had some mechanical problems which forced him to retire after about 15min. After everybody had done their tire stops at the 30min mark I lead the race by almost 2 laps. Francesco Tironi (with fresh tires) was able to close the gap to only 1 lap with 5min to go. Unfortunately my engine flamed out in my last pit stop, so I finished in 2nd place.
All in all Iâ™m happy with my result but not with my speed; there is still some work to do in order to find a good set-up for the use of tire additive.
Thanks to Jarb and the whole MAXIMA team for the great hospitality.
