Dutch Nats - Rucphen

This weekend we had the 5th round of Dutch Nationals at Mac De Baanbrekers. The Dutch Temple of Speed. A big flowing track with long sweepers. Getting in the rhythm is key.

Training on Saturday showed my 5 min pace was good, however I was missing some fast stable laps at the beginning of the run.

Sunday morning I did some high speed wrenching on the car, replacing the lower and upper arms in a attempt to gain some corner speed. Especially in the 2nd part of the corner.

Qualy 1, Sidney Blokker was crazy consistent and I still had some issues in the early laps, so only a 5th place, 7 tenths behind P3.

Qualy 2, car a bit too stable and missed TQ by 2 seconds.

Qualy 3, a body tuck took my potential 2nd place.

In the break before the finals I checked my notes from previous races and found some ideas to reduce initial steer on the new set of tires,and to increase corner speed. Starting from 4 I knew I had to do some early passes on Max Hordijk and Lorenzo van Leeuwen to make sure Sidney didn't escape.

Final 1, Sidney and Lorenzo had some issues, I did a crazy overtake in the full speed corner onto the straight on Max and from there I controlled the pace, only fighting of a very fast Sidney in the last lap, result P1.

Final 2, Max crashed out. Sidney took off and Lorenzo and I had an awesome fight for 2nd place, Lorenzo defended like a lion. However I've got nothing to lose, so full risk attacking, with respect of course.

Last lap, I put full pressure on him and he makes a tiny mistake into the 2nd to last corner, I take the inside line, but he keeps close, and takes the inside line on the last corner. Pushing the throttle stick through my transmitter the turbo kicked in and I finished 0,08in front of him. 🦾🦾 Brilliant drive Lorenzo!!

Final 3, exploding tires left and right, but my ESC and car setup didn't give me any of those issues, and I kept pushing hard when I saw Sidney slowing down to try and save his tires, I managed to overtake him, and after that he pushed to catch back up, but his tire also exploded. Power is not everything it seems.

Finally after some bad results at the nationals I win, first win for me on this track. Really happy with the car and the way I drove.

R. Van Den Akker

Source: R. Van Den Akker