- Evgeny Losev won the qualification after a year break
- 11 pilots entered the “90+ club” at ADM Raceway at once
< li>SINTEC • Fresh Marketplace and LUKOIL Racing Drift Team as a whole advanced to TOP 16
The ADM Raceway track in Myachkovo is the closest autodrome to Moscow in the calendar of the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series and, perhaps, the most familiar track for RDS GP participants. Not surprisingly, this is where some of the most spectacular races take place. Good “rolling” into the track and a rather difficult, technical configuration allow both experienced pilots and newcomers to the series to drive effectively and efficiently on a familiar circuit. This was confirmed by the qualification and TOP 32 of the fourth stage of the RDS GP 2023.
The qualification passed without any particular difficulties – all the pilots who went to the start made at least one successful attempt, and an extremely representative “90+ club” can rightly be attributed to the number of pleasant surprises. With a score exceeding 90 points out of 100, 11 pilots finished the session at once. Such a result in the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series was not for a long time.
Roman Tivodar (TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO) scored 92 points. Dmitry Ermokhin (STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL) and Danila Skorobogatov (TimeUp) shared 0.5 points in qualifying — the pilots scored 93 and 93.5 points in their best attempt, respectively. A similar gap of half a point was between Ilya Fedorov (AUTOPROFI TEAM), who received 94 points, and Arkady Tsaregradtsev (FailCrew x DarkSide), who scored 94.5 points.
Charles NG (STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL) scored 95 points in qualifying. Three athletes at once received 96 points each — Anton Kozlov (Carville Racing), Georgy Chivchyan (TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO) and Damir Idiyatulin (SINTEC • Fresh Marketplace). Andrey Astapov from LUKOIL Racing Drift Team scored 96.5 points. And the winner of the qualification was the pilot of SINTEC • Fresh Marketplace Evgeny Losev, who received 97.5 points from the judges in his first qualifying attempt. For Evgeny Losev, this victory in the RDS GP qualification was the first in almost a year – the last time he won the qualification was last August at the stage in St. Petersburg.
On the eve of the fourth stage of RDS GP 2023, the SINTEC • FRESH Marketplace team exchanged cars. Damir Idiyatulin switched to a Toyota Supra A80, giving his Lexus IS760 to Denis Migal. And although Evgeny Losev remained behind the wheel of the same Toyota Supra A80, on which he started the season, it seems that he finally found a common language with the car. As a result, all three pilots secured their place in the TOP 16 stage, and for the team, the weekend at ADM Raceway may well become a moment of long-awaited revival.
Five qualifying leaders, including Evgeny Losev and Damir Idiyatulin, secured their places in Sunday's duels with the obligatory “bye run” pass. But Denis Migal had to sweat. Moreover, the TOP 32 bracket brought him together with the reigning RDS GP champion Arkady Tsaregradtsev (“FailCrew x DarkSide”). From the first attempt, it was not possible to determine the winner in this pair, and following the results of the scheduled re-run (OMT), the judges gave a ticket to the TOP 16 to Denis Migal.
The second team that made it to the TOP 16 in its entirety was LUKOIL Racing Drift Team. Denis Sorokopud easily passed Evgeny Spirin (VSTeam). Andrey Astapov went further through the “bye run”, and Grigory Gusev made a brilliant debut behind the wheel of his new BMW 3 Series (E92) – an excellent result in qualifying and a confident victory in a duel with Sergey Kabargin.
And for the FailCrew x DarkSide team, Saturday's result was not at all what their fans were counting on. Of the trio of pilots, Vladislav Popov became the strongest, having taken the upper hand in the TOP 32 over Anton Klyamko. His brother Ilya Popov completed the technical meeting and did not even take part in the qualification (like Stepan Azarov from AUTOPROFI TEAM, who was let down by the technique), and the mentor of young pilots Arkady Tsaregradtsev was left out of work.
In two intra-team derbies, two teams lost one of their pilots at once. Dmitry Ermokhin (STAR PЁR STARS AIMOL) left his teammate Boris Abramov without a place in the TOP 16, and Roman Tivodar (TAKAYAMA FORWARD AUTO) did not allow Timofey Dobrovolsky to enter Sunday duels. However, the rookie of the Krasnoyarsk team again pleasantly surprised him with his aerobatics – in the very first race, a wheel was dismantled on Dobrovolsky's car, which did not prevent Timofey from reaching the finish line and even demonstrating a pair drift! There were no such episodes in the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series for a long time!
But there were a lot of questions about the duel between Leonid Schneider (TimeUp) and Anatoly Shcherbak. In the first race, Anatoly, chasing Leonid, was quite aggressive on one of the relays and jumped too close to the leader, seemingly leaving him no room for maneuver. When Shcherbak himself rode the leader, technical problems arose already with his opponent. As a result, having considered both passages, the judges came to the conclusion that Leonid reset the race by the pursuer on his own, and in the status of the leader Schneider made a mistake. The result – Anatoly Shcherbak went further.
RDS GP-2023. A.D.M. Raceway. TOP 16 participants:
- Evgeny Losev — Vladislav Popov
- Alexey Vakhtin — Danila Skorobogatov
- Georgy Chivchyan — Denis Sorokopud
- Anton Kozlov — Grigory Gusev
- Andrey Astapov — Maxim Grossman
- Denis Migal — Dmitry Ermokhin
- Damir Idiyatulin — Anatoly Shcherbak
- Charles NG — Roman Tivodar
The Russian Drift Series Grand Prix Weekend at ADM Raceway continues tomorrow, July 23rd. The participants of the stage are waiting for pair races from the TOP 16 stage up to the final duel of the fourth stage of the RDS GP 2023.
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