STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL won the team competition.
- Charles NG and Flanker F became the strongest on the Igora Drive track
- STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL rookie Dmitry Ermokhin took third place
- Ilya Fedorov reached the RDS GP semi-finals for the first time in a long time
SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia – July 3, 2023
The third stage of the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series of the 2023 season will be forever inscribed in the history of Russian drifting. The weekend at Igora Drive was won by Charles NG, who brought the first ever RDS GP victory to the Russian hypercar Flanker F, created by Sergey Kabargin. For Charles NG (STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL) himself, this success was the second in his career in Russian drifting.
The path to victory for the pilot from Hong Kong began with a re-run (OMT – one more time) with Leonid Schneider from the TimeUp team at the TOP 16 stage. In this duel, Leonid was too aggressive and made contact with Charles – for Schneider, the fight was over, and Charles made it to the TOP 8. True, the mechanics of the STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL team had to work hard to fix the Flanker F.
>The next opponent for the future winner of the stage was Alexei Vakhtin (VSTeam), with whom Charles successfully coped. In the semi-finals, the grid of pair races brought him together with his partner in STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL Dmitry Ermokhin. In this intra-team derby, NG prevailed and reached the final. And Charles NG's rival in the decisive battle was the leader of TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO Georgy Chivchyan, with whom they had already fought a duel in the semi-final at the previous stage in Nizhny Novgorod. Then Gocha became the strongest, but this time he made a mistake – after driving well as a leader, the three-time RDS GP champion overdid it as a pursuer and crashed into Charles.
As a result, the pilot of STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL won the RDS GP stage for the second time in his career, and also brought the first victory in the history of the championship to the Russian Flanker F hypercar and set a kind of “record” – at all three past stages of 2023, the rivals attacked his Flanker F in contact wrestling on the track.
For the other two winners of the stage, the path to the podium was different. Georgy Chivchyan easily overcame the resistance of first Andrey Astapov (LUKOIL Racing Drift Team) and then Nikita Shikov (Carville Racing). In the semi-finals, Gocha faced Ilya Fedorov from AUTOPROFI TEAM. As for Dmitry Ermokhin, in the TOP 16 he was able to defeat the winner of the qualification Timofey Dobrovolsky (TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO) only through the OMT race, and then took over Anton Kozlov (Carville Racing). Anton suffered from problems with the car all weekend, which could not be eliminated by the TOP 8 – they, combined with his own driver's error, led to the fact that Kozlov could not make it to the final.
One of the heroes of the Igora Drive track was Ilya Fedorov. The pilot of AUTOPROFI TEAM literally fought his way to the semi-finals. First, in the TOP 16, the athlete was rammed by Grigory Gusev (LUKOIL Racing Drift Team). Only the team restored the car to the TOP 8, when Danila Skorobogatov (TimeUp) kissed Fedorov's long-suffering Nissan EvoSilvia three times. In battles with Georgy Chivchyan and Dmitry Ermokhin, there were no contacts, but Ilya could not fight on equal terms with them – the difference in the power of the cars was not in favor of Fedorov, although the athlete himself admitted that he was very pleased with the fourth place.
RDS GP. “Igora Drive”. Personal account. Top 3:
RDS GP. “Igora Drive”. Team report. Top 3:
Interesting were the results not only of the weekend in St. Petersburg, but also the position in the individual standings after three stages. Anton Kozlov missed the lead and fell immediately to the third line in the general classification. The second place on the Igora Drive track was enough for Georgy Chivchyan to take the lead, and the victory at the stage allowed Charles Ngu to rise to second place. Nevertheless, nothing has been decided in the top three yet – only 55 points separate the first and third places, and this gap is easily recouped.
In the team standings in the top three, the struggle is no less intense. The leader is TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO, closely followed by STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL. Third place Carville Racing is also able to return to the first line with one successful stage for itself and a problem for competitors.
RDS GP. Personal account. Position after three stages. Top 3:
RDS GP. Team report. Position after three stages. Top 3:
The alignment of forces in the individual and team standings may change in three weeks. On July 22-23, the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series will continue in Moscow – the fourth weekend of the season will be hosted by the ADM Raceway.
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