04.02.2016

Report by J-P Huhtala (VRC race reporter)

2016 Season 1 and round 1, Bangkok RCS Long


1:12 Sportcars 10.5 season started from Bangkok RCS Long. Bailes, Kutvonen, Raistrick were those names at top after qualifying. Danas pace was in shape, he left Finnish Viljami Kutvonen almost 3seconds behind. Britains Graham Raistrick was third over five seconds behind Dana.
Fourth, who qualified with same amount of laps was Carson Yeung from Hong Kong.
By this qualifying we could expect decent battle to final, to be honest expectation of winner was at Danas side.



But what happened, during the final we could see that, maybe Danas concentration wasn’t good enough or something else was wrong because this US supertalent made tiny mistakes first half of final. Start was very stable, those three at front were competing very close each other. Kutvonen was chasing Dana very close range, Raistrick waiting those mistakes from these two. At lap four, first corner, Dana made his first mistake and dropped to 5th place. At very same lap Dana made second mistake at mainstraight corner and this dropped him to the last position. Kutvonen was pleased and was leading, Raistrick in attack range behind. Bailes started furios chase, lap by lap pace was pretty similar with leader Kutvonen. At lap 8th , Bailes passed Takeshita and Phil, he was at 5th position. First corner at lap 11, Dana passed Brasilian Sandro Lage, now he was at 4th place.
He continued his consistent driving and pace was still good. When he chased Yeung at third place, once again lap 13 he did tiny mistake but this didn’t effect nothing. Until driving lap 15, Yeung`s hungry cutting at corner 5 helped Bailes pass him by. Now Bailes was at third position.



Kutvonen and Raistrick`s paces were so stable and consistent, so Bailes only hope to gain positions, was that these guys would do mistakes. But no, this didn’t happened. Raistrick speed comparing to the leader was about 0.2s slower in lap. So even Raistrick couldnt challenge the leader. Rest of the final, group drived this speed train in same positions to finishline.

But to the last conclusion, even we dont want to anybody get mistakes and bad run, Dana made this final very enjoyable to watch.



A-main FINAL PRO

1|Viljami Kutvonen|FI|30|08:06.842 2|Graham Raistrick|GB|30|08:12.864 3|Dana Bailes|US|30|08:15.822 4|Carson Yeung|HK|29|08:06.590 5|Sandro Lage|BR|29|08:09.912 6|Atsushi Takeshita|JP|29|08:15.140 7|Olev Pihl|EE|28|08:03.364 8|Massimiliano Tanturri|IT|DNS 9|Joshua Berman|US|DNS 10|Ritchie Thorn|GB|DNS
A-main FINAL SPORT
1|Lee Passehl|US|29|08:09.792 2|Thomas Klingen|DE|28|08:14.558 3|Jose Manuel Cruz Marquez|MX|28|08:17.120 4|Mike Bridges|CA|27|08:01.970 5|Clemens T|AT|27|08:06.380 6|Javier Fraga|US|27|08:10.242 7|Mark Raddenbury|GB|27|08:12.334 8|Jonathan Csernak|FR|27|08:12.638 9|Romain LACROIX|FR|26|08:00.206 10|Erwin Fiselberger|AT|26|08:01.034
A-main FINAL CLUB
1|Robert Yelle|US|29|08:15.216 2|David LALANNE|FR|28|08:03.030 3|Don Wadkins|US|24|08:00.982 4|Gary Climie|CA|24|08:06.432 5|Lando Landini|IT|22|08:05.142 6|Sylvain DAURAT|FR|17|08:02.890 7|Rodolphe May|FR|DNS - 8|Christopher Pfeiffer|AT|DNS - 9|Asier Castillo Litago|ES|DNS - 10|Ron Verhagen|NL|DNS -

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