- The full article was originally published on EFRA - RC Motorsport Europe -
The IC On-Road season started in Sciacca, Sicily last weekend with Round 1 of the EFRA GP SERIES. A lot of effort and time was putting into this race from AMSCI (Auto Model Sport Club Italy), the hosts Kronios Speed Park and the EFRA crew to come back to racing again after more than 2 years away from the tracks.
The Kronios Speed Park facilities were the perfect place to host this event, and the great crew there organized food, drinks and meals as a perfect example of what could be done in future and bigger events. The great effort of the team gave a good atmosphere even considering the track and weather conditions.
Weather conditions
During the 3 days we had good temperatures considering that, at this time of the year, it’s still not the best range for outdoor races. But one of the most risky and undesirable weather conditions appeared to give the racers problems: WIND. Strong winds on Saturday and specially Sunday (nearly 60km/hr) ruined races for man. Wind and IC on-road cars are unfortunately completely incompatible. The drivers cannot know where to brake or to accelerate, because it is always dependent how strong the wind could be. For that reason, sadly the driver’s experience wasn’t fun and enjoyable, when it’s important to be happy and satisfied during race time.
Track & Track Conditions
The track has an amazing layout with different type of corners. The right section is an amazing continuation of different types of corners, starting with a challenging chicane and then a big internal corner where car setup and driver skills have to be absolutely on-point. Then comes the big corner before the main straight where full throttle is mandatory for a decent lap time. The left side is more technical with a combination of close corners, small chicane and a good infield before the chicane on the right side.
Every part of the track is challenging for car setup. The layout is really nice one and it is amazing to watch cars negotiate the turns for the fastest possible lap times. However, the challenging grip additive must be mentioned as well. The compound/oil/additive on the track created an extreme high grip which was nearly impossible to manage. When the sun comes up and track temperature increased a bit, the grip decreased and in some way was manageable for the drivers. But with low track temperatures, even for top drivers found it difficult to manage a decent racing setup. This caused a lot of crashes, broken bodies and damaged cars left and right. The barriers didn’t help at this point, as they are so close each other. Any mistake and you were out. In some heats, no cars actually finished. Together with strong winds, everything was a perfect combination of factors to add up to extremely difficult track conditions.
Unfortunately, entries didn’t weren’t as much as expected for various reasons. There were only 29 drivers in 1/8th and 8 drivers in 1/10th but, regarding 1/8th IC all the ‘top guns’ attended the meeting (with a couple of exceptions). Thursday consisted of free practice, with the drivers getting used to the track and the conditions.
Friday – Practice
Friday started with Control Practice by groups, where drivers started to realize how difficult it could be to set up the car. DARIO BALESTRI was set fast free practice time following by SILVIO HÄCHLER and JONATHAN GANDIN. In 1/10, THILO DIEKMANN got the fastest time on Friday, following by Domenico Cecala.
Saturday – Qualifying
Saturday started with the last round of FP and after the driver’s briefing, with an explanation of the new MotoGP style qualification system, and moving on with Control Timed practice: CT1 and CT2. After Control Timed practice, the TOP 5 were through directly to Q3. In 1/8th these were DARIO BALESTRI, SILVIO HACHLER, FRANCESCO TIRONI, LAMBERTO COLLARI AND CARMINE RAIOLA. In 1/10th, everybody was in final, so after CT and Q1 all drivers will move into Q3 with THILO DIEKMANN getting the pole position. For 1/8th, 12 drivers bumped up to Q2, especially remarkable was ALEX THURSTON starting in Q1 who bumped up to Q2 and again to Q3. Finally, with the 12 fastest in Q3, the Race Director in consultation with EFRA decided to split Q3 into 2 rounds due to the track and weather conditions. The Q3 gave us an amazing fight between the top drivers in Europe. At the end, TOP 3 directly to the main was Dario BALESTRI, SILVIO HÄCHLER and an incredible and superb Alex THURSTON with an amazing driving in Q3.
Sunday – Finals Day
Sunday started with the 1/4 finals. Drivers who bumped up into the semifinals were THILO DIEKMANN (who was participating in both classes), THOMAS LORENZI and ROBERTO OLIVERI and from 1/4A were MARCUS MAY, GIANLUCA DALCIELO and SILVIO PIPERATO. The semifinals could be considered a resistance race, where keep save on the track could give you bump up to the Main final. At this point, strong winds of around 50kms made it nearly impossible to race in some parts of the track. From semifinal B, the drivers who bumped up into the main were MIRKO SALEMI, LAMBERTO COLLARI and THOMAS LORENZI. From Semifinal A, drivers who bump up into the final was ALESSIO MAZZEO, JONATHAN GANDIN, CARMINE RAIOLA, CRISTIAN BONI and GIANLUCA LINO.
After the semifinals, another new initiative introduced to the EFRA GP SERIES format began: the last chance race! Drivers who didn’t bump up into semifinals had the chance to fight for last spot into the final. The winner of the 15 minute race would bump up into the main to the 12th and final spot on the starting grid. After a thrilling 15 minutes, CLAUDIO CODAZZI got the 12th spot in the main.
Everything was set up to start finals on 1/10th and 1/8th . But the wind was unfortunately getting worse and worse. After meeting with the finalists of the 1/10th and 1/8th, the Race Director and EFRA team decided to skip one of the 2 finals of 25 minutes and move on only with 1 final of 25 minutes in both classes.
In 1/10th, after a good final for THILO DIEKMANN and his Capricorn, he took the victory in 1/10 followed by LORENZO FOTI and in 3rd place the young driver DOMENICO CECALA.
After 1/10th final, it was time for 1/8th. The race got off to a clean start with Dario in 1st place, following by Alex Thurston who got 2nd place in the start after a small mistake of Silvio who was 2nd place on the grid. During the final, Silvio Hächler and his ARC/HASI come back to take 2nd place. Dario maintained his lead of the race and Silvio was pushing hard catch him in an amazing battle. Both drivers had the best pace during the weekend. Then, 6 minutes to the end and with Silvio less 2 seconds behind Dario, the ARC driver made a small mistake and touched the barrier. Silvio was out! At this point Alex Thurston, with solid and steady driving ahead of the other big names in 1/8th got 2nd place until the end. Finally, Dario Balestri won the first round of EFRA GP SERIES following by ALEX THRUSTON and a surprising Cristian BONI who came up from the semifinals and drove a safe race 3rd spot.
New Qualification system
In the EFRA GP SERIES 2022 we are testing new Qualification System in IC On Road. This consists in a similar format to F1 & MotoGP. Basically, after Control Timed Practice, and always using the fastest 3 consecutive laps, the top 30% of the field will classified into Q2 & Q3 (Q3 = top 5) and the remaining 70% will start in Q1. Drivers from Q1 must classified into best 12 to move on into Q2. Q2 will follow same format. After finish 2 rounds of Q2 best 7 will move into Q3. So, at the end the best 12 drivers will fight into Q3 for a place in a final. What was the feedback? As expected there were positives and negatives. It was a nice race format to watch, and more exciting as it’s a competition inside the qualification rounds. On the negative side, there was much stress on the drivers, with no time to prepare the car and sometimes a little bit complicated for the drivers. That could be normal, considering that we are using current format for more than 40 years But of course, these are points to think about and to consider for the future.
Section Chairman Opinion
In my personal view, this has been the most difficult race I attended in my time in EFRA. Many uncontrollable points made the race tough and complicated in some areas. We need to use this race to learn, if we don’t take lessons from this it will ruin the driving experience for the racers and our wish to have successful EFRA GP SERIES won’t be possible. On the positives: AMSCI (huge thanks to Vito & Teo, suddenly Paffundi couldn’t be present of personal reasons), Organizer crew (thanks Fabrizio and all your team), superb facilities, great food and meals organization, technical inspection with high EFRA standards, to come back racing again and to see again all drivers, families and friends. On the negatives: Missing live timing again made it impossible to follow the racing online, the track conditions due to the additive/oil on track, weather conditions due the extremely strong winds, tire managing (so many tires booked comparing to low tire consumption) and, at the end, we couldn’t find the best driver experience which was one of the goals for this EFRA GP SERIES. Sincerely, I want to give thanks to all drivers present at the event for their support and their strong motivation to race even in such difficult conditions. From EFRA side and my personal side, it has been a race to learn, to talk about with others and to fix mistakes which should not be made again.
I hope Rd. 2 in Rucphen (Netherlands) will be a great event and we come back strong than ever. Safe trip for everybody and see you soon in next EFRA meeting!
