20.01.2014

Report on the 2013 1:8 nitro Sportscar World Championships at Heemstede, the Netherlands.



PRO class
17 Year old Team Associated team driver Kevin Pignotti (Italy) has been the star in the 2013 VRC Worlds with winning all 3 World Championships he participated in. The last one was the 1:8 nitro on-road Worlds at Heemstede which he won by a devastating 6 lap advantage over his 9 rivals. Kevin drove the perfect race, with just 1 tire change and without requiring a turn marshal even once in the 60 minute long A-Main final, quite incredible! Kevin recorded his fastest lap in lap 11, 13.292 sec. His race average, excluding the pit stops for refueling and the tire stop was 13.599. An incredible pace to score a faultless 258 lap victory.


Kevin Pignotti taking the lead and never looked back, Toth and Duthie in 2nd and 3rd

The race for the other podium places was very much between Parisi, Mingotti, Duthie and Toth. Parisi and Toth had opted for just 1 tire change (like Pignotti), Mingotti and Duthie for 2. This had a big impact on the race. Going into his second tire stop Duthie was still in second place 7 seconds ahead of Parisi, but the tire stop pushed him back to3rd with 10 laps to go, and a late splash-and-dash fiuel stop cost him even the last podium place in the end. The 2 Italian rivals Parisi and Mingotti had a race between themselves for most part of the final. Parisi looked comfortable in 2nd with a few minutes to go but Mingotti was closing the gap fast. With just 2 laps to go Parisi lost his car twice coming onto the back straight which let Mingotti in for a fight for 2nd. This fight lasted until the finish line with Parisi just edging out his fellow countryman by an 0.08 seconds photo-finish!!!


Photo-finish Parisi (yellow wheels) and Mingotti (white wheels) - World champion Pignotti between them

A-Main Pro
1 Kevin Pignotti IT 258 60:01.912
2 Antonello Parisi IT 252 60:01.856
3 Giorgio Mingotti IT 252 60:01.930
4 Luke Duthie NZ 252 60:04.522
5 Barnabás Tóth HU 252 60:10.896
6 Brian Poliseno* IT 251 60:09.148
7 Graham Raistrick GB 251 60:15.686
8 Massimo Aliprandi IT 247 60:10.882
9 Frederik Broløs DK 239 60:02.812
10 Alexey Babchenko UA DNS

*Brian Poliseno missing in the video because his replay file was not uploaded.

In the Nations ranking it was no surprise to see Italy on top in this class, Italy has been dominating 1:8 nitro on-road (real and virtual) for decades! Germany came 2nd and Switzerland 3rd, 2 more strong on-road countries. 78 Racers competed in Pro class.

SPORT class
The A-Main in Sport class was won by Marcel Schmidt from Germany with a 2 1/2 lap lead on Victor Meshkov and 6 laps on Austrian Martin Burger-Ringer. Schmidt was the only one to do a 1-tire stop strategy which worked out well for him. On average lap times there was just 0.06 seconds separating the top-3, so fuel and tire strategy turned out decisive in this final.

A-Main Sport
1 Marcel Schmidt DE 244 60:09.768
2 Viktor Meshkov RU 241 60:03.846
3 Martin Burger-Ringer AT 238 60:04.112
4 Mads Merrild DK 236 60:12.040
5 Kevin Ruckstuhl CH 235 60:07.088
6 Keith Gray US 233 60:09.056
7 André Welker DE 232 60:12.694
8 Nico Schneider DE 230 60:01.314
9 Andre Boettcher DE DNS
10 Jürgen Graf AT DNS

70 Sport class racers competed in this class. With 4 in the final Germany won the Nations ranking convincingly, with the US taking 2nd and Switzerland taking 3rd.

CLUB class

For Canadian Jeremy Alexandre a 2-tire-stop strategy turned out to be the winning strategy for him, being able to take advantage of his fresher tires towards the end. Andreas Burger-Ringer was staying on pace with the fast Canadian and was even leading the race until just before his 2nd tire stop. Jonas Schmidt from Germany drove a steady race to finish on the podium in 3rd.

A-Main Club
1 Jeremy Alexandre CA 243 60:13.894
2 Andreas Burger-Ringer AT 241 60:08.274
3 Jonas Schmidt DE 239 60:13.508
4 Jose Carlos Palacios Quixal ES 227 60:15.624
5 Silvan Forrer CH 226 60:00.282
6 Markos Kouvariotis GR 226 60:08.568
7 Derek Siciliano CA 223 60:03.892
8 Jan Kok NL DNS
9 Eckart Blau DE DNS

Germany grabbed the Nations ranking convincingly before surprise Canada and Spain in 3rd.
A total 119 racers competed in Club class. As we have seen in other classes, the results in Club and Sport class were very close, mainly because there were many new racers coming in during this Worlds of which many surely were quite experienced on-road racers. Most of them will be racing Sport or even Pro class in 2014.

Comments

Only active members can post comments

(Total posts: 7)

Pieter B Founder	21.01.2014 [12:56] Racers who just joined usually start at Club level, at each end of the quarter we measure the skill level and when your skill level has gone to the next level you are placed in the higher class automatically. Before the start of the new season you may also opt to go to an even higher class, you cannot opt to race in a lower class.
Patrick B Moderator	21.01.2014 [12:00] Posted by: Josh Vulte (US) on 21.1.2014 10:06:51 (UTC) Why are the top club class drivers just as fast as the top Sport class drivers? Do they not realize they can move up to their own level of competition? I thought that they are supposed to get bumped up to the next class, if they are doing that good? they dont wan to up in the sports class haha.. they want good results in club class. because is so much harder to get good results in sports class ^^ club is so easy ...joke, i dont know. Edited by author: 21.1.2014 12:01:54 GMT
Josh V.	21.01.2014 [10:06] Why are the top club class drivers just as fast as the top Sport class drivers? Do they not realize they can move up to their own level of competition? I thought that they are supposed to get bumped up to the next class, if they are doing that good?
Hermann R Moderator	21.01.2014 [09:29] Congratulations Kevin - very very good!
Patrick B Moderator	20.01.2014 [20:52] Youre welcome. Just awesome Performance
Kevin P. 6x VRC World Champion	20.01.2014 [19:48] Thank You Patrick ! :D
Patrick B Moderator	20.01.2014 [19:33] Well done Kevin :)