Here is a race report from Jörg Tiit, a Team Driver for Serpent RC, on how he did at the Russian Grand Prix.

Race: Russian Grand Prix 2013
Date: 19-22 April
Place: Moscow, Russia
Track: Carpet, mixed grip, not very technical, some dangerous overjumps
Classes: 1:8 electric and 1:10 4WD
Qual: 1:8 – 2nd, 1:10 – 6th
Final: 1:8 – 2nd, 1:10 – 3rd

Friday and 1:8 day
Practices: In practices, car was pretty hard to drive because of low grip. We tested some different tires and decided to try one set more in the 1^st qual round. We also made the car bit softer because of grip. We had very little time between the runs, so making big changes on the car was impossible. Finally after the practices, we had car what was drivable, quite fast, but had lack of steering. We stayed with that for the qualifiers.

Qualification(3 rounds, 2 out of 3 system):
1^st qual round was a big failure. We tried some weird tires that we hoped may work, but they didn’t. Car was super slippery and slow, so I managed to get only 7^th time from the first run.
For the 2^nd round we tried the Schumacher Minipins what worked okay. Car was much better and faster and we got 2^nd time from that round.
For the 3^rd round we didn’t change the car and I TQ-ed it. So, 2^nd starting position after JQ for me.

Finals:
For the finals we changed the angle of front arms, to get more steering. That helped, but not much, car was still understeering and we didn’t get rid of it.
Finals were quite “boring”. JQ was bit faster than me, so we didn’t have good battles and other guys were slower than me, so I finished 2^nd very run and got an easy 2^nd place.

About the car: We didn’t find good setup for slippery carpet, car had maybe too less grip and much under steering. Next time better 😉

Sunday and 1:10 4WD

Practices:
In 1:10 4WD we had controlled tire, Ballistic buggy MiniPins. In practices car’s grip was pretty good, but could be better. But we had bigger problem, our old and good friend called under steering. We changed the shocks to softer ones and car went better, was pretty fast, but really hard to drive in battle. In qualifications we stayed with under steering car.

Qualification:
1^st round was pretty okay, clean run, speed was okay and I got 4^th time. 2^nd round was failure, because the battery plug came out, and I lost much time, 11^th place from the 2^nd round. 3^rd round was okay again and I got 5^th time from there.
6^th place on the starting grid for the finals.

We had to change the car for the finals, my times were 0.6 seconds slower than JQ’s. So we did many changes: shortened the wheelbase, changed a bit the steering geometry, used new set of tires for the finals etc.

Finals:
Changes helped a lot, car was superfast now. In the 1^st final, I had bad start, dropped to last on the 1^st lap, but caught up with the leaders group and finished 3^rd. Car was seriously fast, times were as fast as JQ’s, and we were 0.2 seconds faster than next guy.

In the 2^nd final, I broke right front arm on the first lap. We thought that chances to get good place is pretty hard now. But luck was on our side that day. Timing failed and we got new run. 2^nd final was the best run of the race, at least for me. I had good start, and I was on the 3^rd place soon, right after the leader and JQ. Leader made mistake and race was now between Jose and me. I was leading, but car had understeering again, really hard to battle. We both had little mistakes, we overtook me after one wide corner but I got lead back after he went wide. About 30 seconds to go, and JQ takes the lead and wins by 0.6 seconds, I was 2^nd.
In the 3^rd final, I had a battle with JQ again, but I pushed too hard, made a mistake on the jump and broke my car.

Overall 3^rd place in A final.

Race was really nice, people were nice, organization was great, Moscow was beautiful. Perfect trip, okay results, one good experience in our bag. Looking forwards to race again in Moscow 😉

Best wishes,
Jörg Tiit