BNK Kampenhout 2015

The astroturf track of Kampenhout was dry. As a result of rain the day before, the track was clean of dirt and dust and the grip was high by the standards of Kampenhout, medium for astroturf in general.

The first qualifier was still slightly moist, just before the switch-over point from silver to yellow compound Schumacher tires. In those conditions, I scored 12th. In the second and third qualifiers, conditions were dry and in such high grip conditions I had little experience with the car. I scored 18th and 21st respectively, good for 7th in the B-finals.

Between the qualifying and finals I switched to a 3-gear layout, which seemed to make the car somewhat more predictable. Widening the car front and rear also helped a lot to increase cornering speeds and reduce grip roll.

In the finals, I had some bad luck in the first two heats, falling back in the field. I found the car quick enough to gain back time, but difficult to push on the limit. In the third heat I managed to stay out of trouble at the start and make a consistent run, hauling in the 4th place, showing the pace is there.

All in all the car definitely has the pace to drive competitively on dry medium bite astroturf, and I estimate the result would have been equal when I would have run my RC10 B5M. However, there is room for improvement by making the car more forgiving in conditions with higher bite.