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News  Racing
T4 crowned TITC Champion, Thailand |
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| Race Report by Alexander Hagberg |
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The biggest on-road race in Asia took place once again in Bangkok, Thailand, at the famous Infinity Addict circuit. This race stands out as one of the most competitive races of the year, as it's attended by all factory teams, whom all put in extensive amounts of practice leading up to the event. Our team came to the event with a fairly small, but strong group of drivers.
I started practicing as we arrived, and immediately felt that I had a good basic set-up for my car (we ran the set-up from last year). Step by step, we started to fine tune the setup for the ever changing track conditions - and I was feeling really well about how things were going, as I was setting the pace in practice. I couldn't wait for the race to start. In the end, we only ended up changing small things on the setup such as offsets, diff oil and tire prep. As controlled practice started, the car was still on pace, at least for the 5 minute run. I was relieved to find out that the car was very competitive at this point still. Eventually I was awarded the TQ spot by winning the first and last round of qualifying! This was an important first step! My team mate Bruno Coelho showed a very strong pace, especially in Q4, but was unlucky to only start 4th on the grid for the finals.
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| The finals were going to be very close, as always at this event. In A1, I had to drive defensively at first, to protect my position against a hard charging Naoto. A couple of minutes into the race, I was given some breathing room. A2 started off much in the same fashion, but as soon as the car came in, my pace was good enough for me to gap the field, and control the race all the way to the finish line! To win this event was an extremely satisfying feeling, especially after having come so close last year! I want to send out a massive thanks to the entire team for their hard work the entire week, especially Bruno, Franci, Tom, Dominic, HJ, Luke among others! And of course, last but not least, my mechanic Martin Hudy for his perfect mechanical work all week - which gave me the confidence to perform well in every run! My team mate Bruno Coelho had to settle for 4th after some very unfortunate incidents in the finals. Especially in A3 as he was penalized to start last on the grid after a transponder problem. |
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| Modified Results |
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1 Alexander Hagberg - XRAY T4
2. Naoto Matsukura
3. Akio Sobue
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| In the open brushless class - XRAY had a really strong showing with 5 cars in the A-final. This is a very good result in this competitive class! The local fast guy Kriengsak S. was fighting for the TQ, but eventually had to settle for 2nd. Our Singaporean team driver Dominic Quek lined up 3rd on the grid. The finals turned out fairly uneventful, but our guys managed to hang on to their podium spots in the end! Congrats also to Tom Kragefski, John Lu and J. Purisek for making the A-final with their XRAY cars! Dominic made his best result in this class to date, and I am sure he will come back even more competitive at next year's edition! |
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| Open brushless Results |
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1. Max Machler
2. Kriengsak S. - XRAY T4
3. Dominic Quek - XRAY T4
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