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News  Racing
T4 wins at FBA, Belgium |
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| Race report by Florian Joos |
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| The Belgian FBA 1/10 electric nationals 2018 consists of 7 races. 5 are run outdoors and 2 indoors. The first race of the nationals kicked off with an indoor race on ETS carpet at the GTM club in Vosselaar. The club made a technical layout in order to use most of the big 30 x 20m surface and provided a roomy pit area for all the drivers and mechanics. |
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With the promotion of Stefan Rommens and Florian Joos to the modified class, some said that the class was a bit beheaded. 2017 champion Vincent Van Gansen was however keen to keep his title. The main challenge would come from Giovanni Moguez (XRAY). Giovanni has been training intensively the last months and is at his prime. Unsurprisingly the first qualifier went Vincentâ™s way, but Giovanni was only .6 behind after the full 5 minutes of intensive racing.
The battle for TQ would go down to Q3. Vincent however kept his cool and claimed his first pole of the season. Giovanni lined up 2nd, but was only 1 second behind. Rick van den Akker (XRAY) took a fine third position, some 6 seconds behind Giovanni. Having not run in last years championship, Rick had to start in the slowest group, which hampered his pace a bit, despite this handicap, he was able to put in a strong qualifier. Xavier Debroye was in fourth, followed by Peter Degrande. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the great pace that youngsters Alexander Van Gansen (P7), Mathias van Laere (P8) and Roel Jongenelis (Xray, P10) showed.
Finals
Vincent doesnâ™t seem to like thrillers, and he upped his game for the finals. He controlled the entire field and easily won A1 and A2 in great fashion. He thus claimed his first race of the season. Giovanni Moguez took the runner up spot and thought his lack of pace in the finals to be down to tyres (in stock, only 1 set of tyres is allowed). Rick finished a solitary third and completed the XRAY podium.
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| Stock results: |
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1. Vincent Van Gansen - XRAY T4
2. Giovanni Moguez - XRAY T4
3. Rick van den Akker - XRAY T4
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In A1, Ollie wanted to check out early, but Nicolas was keen to follow his pace. Until lap 12, the battle raged on, but then Ollie eased away. Both of them were having a solitary run, but the battled raged on for P3 to P5. Steve took P3 from Vincent and Florian after a battle that lasted for 10 laps.
A2 again went Ollieâ™s way, but this time, Nicolas was hunted down by Florian for almost the entire race. When Florian did a daring move to gain P2, Nicolas fought back and reclaimed his position. The fight for P2 raged on till Nico traction-rolled his car on a piece of tape. Steve took P4 in front of Vincent who showed great pace in his rookie F1 year.
Ollie elected not to run in A3 and watched the fight for the final podium spots from the spectator area. At the first corner melĂ©e, Martijn was hit for the third time and he pulled his car off the track. Unfortunately he cut the track to park his car and ran Florian off the track. Thanks to some quick marshalling, Florian kept P7 as he hurled down the peloton, led by Nicolas, Vincent, Steve and Patrick Jongenelis (XRAY). When Florian was pushing Patrick for P3, Patrick decided not to fight back and decided to let Flo go by. In great sportsmanship, Vincent let his teammate go by so that he could try to catch Nicolas and fight for the overall P2. Nicolas was however cruising and almost had the victory in his bag. Nico made an uncharacteristic mistake and this allowed Florian in his slipstream again. Nicolas withstood the pressure so Florian waited for the very last lap to try a pass. As it wasnâ™t a clean one, he waited for Nico to recover. |
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| F1 results: |
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1. Nicolas Delisé
2. Florian Joos - XRAY X1
3. Steve Deblaere
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