27.12.2011

1:10 Nitro specialist Frank Hättich has added a 3rd consecutive world title to his impressive VRC career. After winning the title in 2009 at the Tamiya Kakegawa track in Japan, in 2010 in Fiorano Italy, Frank was now victorious at the Pegaso track in Mexico. His main rival was his country fellowman Ronald Völker who charged hard in the 45 minutes main final but fell 3.25 seconds short in the end. Thai ace Pongtorn Trayrananon completed the podium just 1 lap down on the 2 front runners.

The race between Frank and Ronald was incredibly tight. Take a look at the race comparison stats. Ronald Völker delivered an amazing flat race, fastest lap at 16.142, slowest lap 17.712, net race average 16.397, including pit stops 16.616. How on earth can you beat that? We have to ask Frank because he did that with a fastest lap of 16.070, slowest lap of 19.014 and net race average of 16.386, eleven thousands faster per lap on average. Up until lap 130 Hättich and Völker had swapped places several times but from there on Frank didn’t blink anymore and ran away from Ronald 0.1 second a lap to finish 3 seconds ahead of him in the end. Both racers had opted not to change tires, something that was discussed in the forums as necessary but apparently they both had compromised their set-ups to equal out tire wear. With a tire change they would have come within reach of Pongtorn and Kevin Pignotti, so it turned out to be a race winning strategy. Ronald told VRC: ‘Frank was a great help in set up, he has such a vast experience in this class. For me it was the first time I drove the 1:10 nitro class in VRC Pro and I could use his help. He is a great World Champion, a great sports and very fast!’

Check out the race comparison sheet between Frank and Ronald at: https://www.vrcworld.com/tracks/laps.aspx?result=216610,221487&incidents=1

The race for the 3rd podium place was between Pongtorn Trayrananonfrom Thailand and 1:8 nitro World Champ Kevin Pignotti from Italy. Their race was decided around lap 70 where Pongtorn was able to create a 2 second gap and was able to gradually stretch it till 6.446 seconds after 45 minutes. Pongtorn’s original result was corrected with 12 seconds for technical reasons as he had used an engine which turned out to be significant more fuel effective than the other .12 engines due to a configuration error in the component, so certainly his fault. The time penalty issued reflected 2 pitstops that he had saved as a result. Even without the correction he would have finished 3rd in this World Championship.

Check out the race comparison sheet between Pongtorn and Kevin at:
https://www.vrcworld.com/tracks/laps.aspx?result=214677,215520&incidents=1

Germany was the strongest performing country in this Worlds, with Hättich, Völker and Brunke in the top-10. Italy finished second with Pignotti, Poliseno and Salemi in the top-18, and Australia took 3rd place in the nations ranking with Stack, Leete and Patto in the top-23.

Check out all the 1:10 nitro Worlds race results at:
https://www.vrcworld.com/events/event.aspx?event=914#detail

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