| Race report by Martin Hudy |
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| The World Championship warm-up race was held April 7-9 in Collegno, Italy. Top drivers from Europe and Asia were present including Team XRAY Europe. Jilles Groskamp, Joel Myrberg, Viktor Wilck, Juraj and Martin Hudy attended this race to gain the experience with the all-new T2 in preparation for the upcoming World Championships. Nearly 120 of the world's best drivers participated in this event to test setups and scout the competition. |
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| The weekend started with a free practice on Friday and since the weather was very friendly it allowed us to work very actively the whole day. Since this was the first large event for the new T2 on asphalt there was a difficult task in front of us to test all the different combinations and set-ups we had in mind. With the T2 having established itself indoors, working extremely well and was dominaing most of the races around the world, we were really confident for this outdoor event and excited at the same time. Several practices sessions with the T2 prototype in the autumn showed us that the T2 had very high potential on the asphalt, so we just could not wait to get our T2 cars on the Worlds track to face the world's top competition. |
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We decided to use the indoor rubber tire setup as a starting point during the practice sessions, but as expected needed to increase both steering and traction for the cold outdoor track. With some minor changes to the setup, the car improved a lot and our team was looking forward to Saturday's qualifiers.
The racing on Saturday started with timed practice early in the morning. My T2 worked really well in this timed practice session, posting a time that placed me 4th overall in front of Masami. |
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| The qualifiers started with some very tough competition and serious racing. Jilles was still refining his set-up. Jilles was able to finish in the first qualifier in 4th but felt his car had much more to offer. Viktor and Joel struggled with motors and radio interference problems which kept them off the pace. I ran strong, but failed to make runtime in first two qualifiers. The most surprising performance showed Juraj with his T2 that worked perfectly from early morning to the late evening, running extremely consistent he finished in every qualifying round at around 20th â“ 25th position which was a great result for our senior test driver. |
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Joel was very fast and his car worked really well but the luck was not with Joel at this time. Serious interference issues allowed him only one clean qualifying run where he finished in the top 5 but since two best results counted, he had to settle for the B final only.
Despite not the best start in the first qualifiers Viktor has worked hard through all the qualifying rounds improving each round enough to secure him a spot in the A Final. The second XRAY qualified to the A final was the T2 of Jilles. After I solved my runtime issues and made some minor changes to my setup I made one final run which was A final caliber but it was still not good enough for the overall A main position and unfortunately I have qualified 21st. |
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Two XRAY qualified for the A final was good and promising result for the team considering that all of the other teams already had long term experience with their cars on asphalt whereas this was our first large event.
We did not rest and worked hard during the whole Sunday to improve the car and showcase some great performance in the finals. Viktor made a couple of minor set-up modifications to soften the suspension which made his T2 to fly on the track. The softer suspension and the minor changes Viktor made on his car had a tremendous effect. Despite starting from the 9th position in a very strong field he was able to drive through the crowd to the 4th position in two finals, which was very difficult with each driver fighting hard for each position. |
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In the last final run Viktor was so comfortable with the performance of his T2 that he broke the track records and established the fastest lap of the weekend at 17.4sec surprising and shocking the crowd. Typical lap times averaged 17.6-17.7seconds. Viktorâ™s time sent notice to the other teams that the Xray would be a car to keep an eye on.
In the finals I was able to correct my setup and improve my lap times by 0.2 , running times consistent with the A final group. It was a bit too late though but I was able to work on some further small tests to try and gain as much feedback and experience on the car as possible to be well prepared for the Worlds. |
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| As in the previous days it was again Juraj who showed the best performance of the T2 in the final runs. Juraj (who is known for his perfectionism and working on the very smallest set-up details which most would overlook) perfectly set-up his car which behaved and looked like a 1/12 pan car on the track, very smooth, sticky, consistent and extremely easy to drive. With such a great handling car it was no wonder Juraj was able to run at pace with such drivers like Simo Ahoniemi and beat the British National Champion Chris Grainger. |
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| With the level of competition already witnessed at the Worlds warm-up, it has us looking forward eagerly to the World Championships in July. Since the last World Championships the technology and professionalism in the approaches by the teams has greatly increased. Team Xray has always been a strong contender and at this race our dedication and professional team work was proven again. Despite the initial disadvantage we had we were able quickly catch on and be on the pace. But mainly we had this great opportunity to work together on the T2, to fine tune the set-up and test all ideas and plans we have had with some great results. We headed home with some further improvement ideas and goals and we are already working hard again to come back to the World Championship well prepared. See you at the Worlds. |
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Final notes:
⢠Worldâ™s warm-up was the first large outdoor event of this season for the all-new T2
⢠In very tough and the worldâ™s best competition (all 3 World Champions at the event) XRAY put 2 of the T2 in the A final
⢠XRAY team has proved to be at the world championship performance level breaking and setting new track record
⢠It was really cold in Italy
⢠As usually the tire tricks will win or loose the Worlds race for you |
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⢠The tire difference was very big between the tires themselves
⢠Organizers will have very tough times and the unlucky driver who will choose the bad tires will have even worse bad luck
⢠XRAY has been the main sponsor of the European and World Championship events and this year again XRAY has proved to be not only the market leader but also main supporter of this hobby
⢠The T2 worked very well from the first day but with the ongoing small fine set-up tuning we worked out the performance to the highest performance level
⢠4 different brands of cars in final
⢠Almost 120 drivers at this event |
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