04.02.2016

Report by J-P.Huhtala (VRC race reporter)

2016 Season 1 and round 1, Bangkok RCS Long

After qualifying was ended, expectations of upcoming very tight race was true. Bailes, Raistrick, Kutvonen and Caley were those four drivers who stand out from the result list. These drivers were inside six seconds. And also it was very true that, anyone in this group could take this race. As we saw in the race, anything could happend. In some point also Hasegawa showed magnificent racing and speed against these top qualifiers.

Start was very intence, Bailes, Raistrick and Kutvonen took lightning start and fight was on. Coming to second turn Viljami made pit too hungry cut to the corner and drobbed to last position.
Bailes and Raistrick were leading the final, Hasegawa had third place. After first lap Kutvonen had gained his place already to 5th, and was chasing Hasegawa and Caley who was now at third place.
Racing was furios. At lap four, Bailes cutted too much at turn four and this dropped him to third place, Kutvonen was at fourth. From this point Bailes, Caley, Kutvonen and Raistrick was fighting those positions at the top, race was fantastic. Few wide corners for Graham and this dropped him a little pit back but he was there, chasing these three. At lap 7, turning to main straight corner, Bailes made huge mistake going too much inside and collided with the outside wall. This dropped him to last position. Few corners after this incident, at lap 8, Kutvonen made mistake and dropped his position all the way to back with Bailes and Yeung. Now Caley was leading, Raistrick and Hasegawa chasing.



At this lap once again something happened, now it was at turn 7 and Kutvonen cutted the corner and hit to the wall. This turned his race very frustrating, he was dropped to 8th place. And no time when Viljami was running at 9th lap, turning to corner five….it looked like there was too much grip or setup was terrible. So weird this falling looked, and this dropped him 9th place. Caley was at the lead, Hasegawa, Raistrick and Vey at very close range.
Fantastic! And amazing, at lap 11, Kutvonen cutted the third corner and car was, once again at a wall. At this point Bailes had pit by pit gained his difference to the lead and was at fourth, two seconds behind Raistrick. Raistrick and Hasegawa were battling very hard of second place,
Bailes was only second away from these.



And once again, this guy took this style to habbit. Lap 17, second turn, Kutvonen poured his car of too much inside cutting. At the lead Caley had improved his gap to Hasegawa and Raistrick, gap was almost three seconds and this looked good for Caleys race. Hasegawa took too aggressive line at turn six and collided with the wall. This dropped him to 5th place.
Now leading group was looking stable, Caley, Raistrick and Bailes, all drivers inside three seconds.
Lap 21 at eight position was Kutvonen, it looked that Viljami`s race had gone really under the bench and he didn’t care a less. He was “full attack” mode and this was seen at last turn of the lap, before timingline, he poured his car once again and it fly all the way to main straight. Nothing didn’t seem to be ok with this Finnish driver. Even Viljamis race went bad in early stage, expectations were high.
Even without those two last mistakes at same corner, at laps 30 and 31, main straight corner, wouldn’t help him much at final results.
From lap 21 Raistrick and Bailes had very good battle of second place, side by side they went and some corners it looked that theres disaster waiting but these superdrivers showed how this
is done.



Finally Bailes got little advantage of Raistrick and difference between these, settled about half second. Caley was almost two seconds runaway from these two.
Rest of laps Bailes was giving hard pressure to Caley and the gap seem to be shorten. But Bill Caley from USA, didn’t shaked, he was consistent, fast and didn’t make any mistakes during the final. Run was very combareable what he did at Carpet 3 track with 1:10 ISTC modified car.
Absolutely this race is worth to watch, and see how everybody managed.

A-main FINAL PRO

1|Billy Caley|US|32|08:00.350 2|Dana Bailes|US|32|08:01.556 3|Graham Raistrick|GB|32|08:02.658 4|Atsushi Hasegawa|JP|32|08:07.674 5|Ralf H. Vey|DE|32|08:11.082 6|Raphael Schiffer|DE|32|08:12.600 7|Carson Yeung|HK|31|08:01.680 8|Viljami Kutvonen|FI|31|08:08.328 9|Atsushi Takeshita|JP|31|08:13.466 10|Milan Peka|CZ|30|08:03.244
A-main FINAL SPORT
1|Sandro Lage|BR|32|08:13.114 2|Joost Wouters|NL|30|08:07.418 3|Thomas Klingen|DE|30|08:09.566 4|Kevin Tsang|HK|30|08:12.132 5|Yuriy Meshkov|RU|29|08:06.528 6|Jonathan Csernak|FR|29|08:16.278 7|Mike Bridges|CA|29|08:16.404 8|Hans Guenther Heitsch|DE|28|08:09.400 9|Christian Drießle|DE|DNS 10|Nobuyuki Tashiro|JP|DNS
A-main FINAL CLUB
1|Lee Passehl|US|31|08:04.994 2|Javier Fraga|US|28|08:02.486 3|Alex Leeman|US|28|08:03.514 4|Antti Silvennoinen|FI|28|08:12.858 5|Tony DELMASTRO|FR|26|08:01.540 6|Mike Strack|DE|26|08:03.004 7|Mark Raddenbury|GB|26|08:06.142 8|Tom Ebersole|US|26|08:16.282 9|On Wong|CN|DNF 10|Max Hamun Ahmadi Zenouz|DE|DNS

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