02.02.2016

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

2016 Season 1 and round 2, Atsugi 2

Season 1 second race was raced at Kyosho works track, Atsugi 2 in Japan.
We saw very tight battle of podium places. This Pro final was fun to watch, as drivers paces were so close each other. French Arthur Brule started from the pole, where he was appointed after very tight qualifying, winning Swedish Andre Fossto only 0.248 margin. Third grid went to Kevin Rasguin from France, losing to the leader about 3 seconds.
When the final started, there was little drama. South African Willem Janse van Rensburg missed the tone at the start, losing 2seconds and this mistake dropped his position to the last.
Also Australian Chris Kalfoglou had some issues at start, maybe he was pit nervous and his car moved a little pit before the tone, but this movement did not give him any penalty. Finally he got very good start for the final. He gained his place to third at start.
After those start incidents final was good to go, Brule was leading very tight margin from Fossto and Rasguin, who drove behind at third place. It looked that Fossto could challenge Brule about first place, he was hungry and finding very very tight line to each corner.



But at lap 8 this "tight driving" gave him a punishment, at fifth corner line went too inside and disaster was ready. Car flew into the air and ended up in the wall. That mistake cost Andre about 3.2 seconds and his place dropped to 7th place.



But during the final, we saw his skills of driving. He continued his plan of driving "amazing aggressive" line, of course tiny mistakes were taken but he was hungry for that first place. At the 17th lap he had raised his position to 3rd place, but Brule and Rasguin were also fast at the front and this 3rd place was Andre`s final position at this race.
Also race winner Arthur Brule didnt manage without mistakes this final, little mistake at lap 17, he losed allmost 2seconds and this gave a little more hearbeat to Arthur. But honestly, Arthurs driving was magnificent, pace was good, consistent and no wonder why he was at highest at results after the final. When Fossto and Brule got there mistakes but were going very fast, Frencman Kevin Rasguin gave good pressure to Brule. Kevins consistent and fast driving were shown but at the end, he came second to the flag, only 0.8seconds behind the winner. Magnificent driving Kevin!



A-main FINAL PRO

1|Arthur Brulé|FR|23|05:05.078 2|Kévin Rasquin|FR|23|05:05.884 3|André Fossto|SE|23|05:08.386 4|Willem Janse van Rensburg|ZA|23|05:09.410 5|Ralf H. Vey|DE|23|05:10.266 6|Dana Bailes|US|23|05:11.004 7|Chris Kalfoglou|AU|23|05:11.404 8|Herve Becet|FR|22|05:00.786 9|Graham Raistrick|GB|22 05:01.582 10|Milan Peka|CZ|22|05:10.604

A-main FINAL SPORT
1|Marcelo Borges|BR|23|05:11.952 2|Hijrah Saputra|ID|22|05:01.288 3|Heikki Huhtala|FI|22|05:08.834 4|Bart Acda|BE|22|05:12.756 5|Paulo Guedes|BR|22|05:12.850 6|Emanuel Riplinger|DE|21|05:01.472 7|Andrew Curless|AU|21|05:04.846 8|Yuriy Meshkov|RU|21|05:05.576 9|Anakin Xiu|CN|21|05:12.442 10|Marko Vähäkuopus|FI|DNS

A-main FINAL CLUB
1|Antti Silvennoinen|FI|21|05:00.100 2|Dieter Dick|AT|21|05:04.446 3|Wil Ho|HK|21|05:06.732 4|Elliott Miyashiro|US|21|05:07.360 5|Seiya Inoue|JP|21|05:07.610 6|Laurent Lemaître|CH|21|05:16.880 7|Tim Kinnett|US|20|05:05.086 8|Romain LACROIX|FR|20|05:07.200 9|Tony DELMASTRO|FR|20|05:12.020 10|Francisco Javier Ortiz de Solorzano Dominguez|ES|19|05:05.152

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