Race report by Pierre Delorme & Manuel Wagner

The first Round of the French winter Nats was held last weekend in the Racing Club of Argenteuil, near Paris. Drivers were racing in 3 different classes : F1, 1/12, 1/10. The track layout was the famous "black" high grip carpet used on most indoor races. The track was very difficult for driving 5 minutes without making any mistakes. The track was tight and fast, for giving any idea one lap was about 11sec for Stock 10.5 Blinky TC class.

To start Saturday racing day we had 2 free practices and one control practice, I did further test during "track open" time because of the new handling of the car and the new tires we didn't known. I did the control practice with used tires and I did the best time over a lap and 5min. The car was working perfectly.

Saturday afternoon was dedicated to 3 qualifications and I made the mistake of using brand new tires for the first one, the car was under-steering and over-steering after that I knew that tires must be used in practices before racing. With used tires for the other two qualis the car was handling perfectly, in Q2 and Q3 I did a 3rd place and a 2nd place which ranking me 3rd after Saturday racing. Saturday night the track was opened from 6:30pm to 8pm I did more tests to improve lap times working especially on chassis flex and tire treatment and I found very good issues to improve lap times by 0.3sec which represents an enormous amount of time on 5min.

In Sunday morning, in Q4 my XRAY car was working perfectly with new tips found Saturday night but a big mistake gave me a 3rd place. The Q5 was better from lap times and I did the best lap of qualifications but a little mistake put myself in P2 from 0.9 sec of TQ. My brother also found the good setup Saturday night and did two 4th places in Q4 and Q5 which ranked him P4.

In modified Manuel Wagner was only able to manage the 6th spot on the starting grid. To be faster he gambled all on the tire treatment.

The finals were very tight and it was very hard to catch the men in front of you if he didn't make any mistakes. In the first final I did a better start than Jeremy and I caught P1, the grip have increased after qualis because of the "track open" time, after 3minutes leading from more than 3 seconds over the second car the car rollout on a tight corner, I restarted P2 after this and finished P2 at the first final, Mathias finished P3. In the second final I tried a different setup to delete the rollout behavior with higher rear roll center but the car was slower and Jeremy didn't make any mistake ahead, I finished P2 and my brother P3. In the last final Jeremy didn't start because he already won two finals, so the second place was other Mathias, my brother and me. In the first minute, Mathias passed me after a little mistake, I was still chasing him when he crashed and broke his steering block at 4:30 so I took P1 in the last final which gave me a second place overall. My brother broke his spur gear in the last final so he finished 4th overall.

In modified finals it was very close until the last minute. After 4 minutes several crashes especially in the last lap gave Manu Wagner the 2 spot behind Cyril N’diaye. In the second final, a big crash at the start let Manu go away for the fight of the win but he finished 2nd again. In the last main Manu ended up 2 after 1 minutes and during 3 minutes he tried to catch the leader Mathieu Briere before he touched the curb and that forced him to stop his final. This two 2nd spots offer Manu a podium finish.

Final result TC Stock:
1. Jeremy Delalondre
2. Pierre Delorme - XRAY T4'15
3. Romain Delaunay - XRAY T4'15
4. Jean Delorme - XRAY T4'15
5. Remi Bertrand
6. Mathias Rascol - XRAY T4'15
7. Jean-Batiste Janssens
8. Boris Girault - XRAY T4
9. Vincent Cavard - XRAY T4
10. Jeremy Deram - XRAY T4

Final result Modified:
1. Cyril N'Diaye
2. Mathieu Briere - XRAY T4'15
3. Manuel Wagner - XRAY T4
4. Hugo Ragaut
5. Remi Callens - XRAY T4'15
6. Jérémy Limoges - XRAY T4'15
7. Mathias Rascol - XRAY T4'15
8. Gilles Hendrickx