2014 start and I would travel to Italian Job for the first race of the season! About 150 drivers attended the race. It was very challenging for me as the last time I drove on the track was last year's Italian Job! The layout had changed since then and many drivers already made the trip there, not mentioning the domestic Italians who are really fast there!
I practiced a couple of days before the race to have proper feeling of the car and tires. After the 2 first qualifications, I was already top 10 secured so I tried a more aggressive diff setup for the last round. The car wasn't a lot faster but harder to drive so I would go back to 5-7-3 for the mains. Standard 8 holes pistons for shocks worked amazing. I tried different tires combination during qualification and for the finals I opted for Micro contact in silver compound without any additive.
The Maugrafix and IBR crew put a big show together with a different race format including 3 15minutes finals and a Last Chance Qualifier for the ultimate spot for the main! It gave the public the show they deserved!
In leg 1, I took a great start directly from 7th on the grid to 2nd. Then we fought with Robert Batlle and I ended up 3rd. In every main I did small changes on the car like caster or flex and finally the car was amazing!Fast and consistent! Finishing 3rd, 4th and 2nd, with the 2 best result on points out of 3, I got 3rd! Nice result for the car I'm still learning! Great result also for team mate Martin Wollanka who was super fast all week end, but some mistakes deprived him from a better result. Same for Lorenzo Crolla, qualifying 11th for his first international race with the XB8, a really promising result!
(click to enlarge)
Final results:
1. Alex Zanchettin
2. Robert Battle 3. Reno Savoya - XRAY XB8
4. David Ronnefalk 5. Martin Wollanka - XRAY XB8
6. Elliott Boots
7. Ricardo Berton
8. Yannick Aigoin
9. Marco Baruffolo
10. Ale Stocco
