Emotions were running high in the pit of the Top Run team during the two races. The Italian squad and its driver, Luca Rangoni, achieved a very positive debut for the new Subaru STi TCR, after the well-known logistical odyssey, a performance that granted them the “Men of the Race” virtual trophy. The car took the track for Race 1 without a single inch of practice and with the driver having no experience at all of the circuit. Still, it completed the race in P15. In Race 2, Rangoni stopped after five laps, as planned, after having ranked as high as 12th.
The Bologna-born driver commented: “It has been a real challenge, given the circumstances out of our control that we all know. The 15 race laps we completed over the weekend are to be seen as a real-life shakedown. What is clear is that the potential of the car is very high and the development work starts only now. Already from Saturday to Sunday, the progress has been impressive. In Race 1, the gearbox had a very long response time, the brakes weren’t functioning properly and the set-up was obviously not the right one for this track. Today, most of the problems were corrected, and the progress quite visible, despite having only 40 minutes to work on the car.”
Having confirmation of that, the team opted for stopping Race 2 in lap 5: “We collected a tremendous amount of useful feedback and data”, explained team manager Renato Russo, “and now we have a very good basis upon which to start the real development work. We took the commitment of debuting at Singapore and are very happy to have been able to stick to it. It has been fifty days of non-stop work for us since we took delivery of the car, and despite the difficulties, we are very happy of our debut: the car has shown a great potential and proven already it is a wonderful addition to the highly-competitive TCR International Series.”
