Yesterday I was at a club race, and I've driven the FWD in the last of the final heats.
The clay was recently treated with a compound to reduce the amount of wear and erosion of the clay - which also massively increased traction (lets just say grip roll was becoming an issue, many people were running clay geometry but dampers with an astroturf setup). Without preparation, my driving and my car were used to the track with zero bite - this (particularly my driving
) compromised my qualifying, becoming pole sitter for the B finals.
With the setup of my DEX210 fixed in the meantime, I had two decent finals, ending first and second. Just before the start of the last final, I decided to swap the transponder and put it in my FWD for the last final. I had driven it there last week - before the track was treated - and found it needed a softer front setup. Without any preparation otherwise I used it in the finals...
...and came in first
it really went quite well and consistently, even the start was good (I managed to retain first place into the first corner without trouble).
More relevant is perhaps that FWD was only 7 seconds slower than with the DEX210 over the course of a final! Some notes: This was the fastest final with my 210, but I did have a bad start in that final, losing some 8 seconds. It was less dusty, so there was more bite, thus potentially more pace. The quickest lap of the FWD is off by about 0.9 seconds. Also, I let the winner of the club race drive it, and he was also only off by about 0.8 seconds from his quickest lap time (with only 3 minutes of practicing with the car)
So it seems the pace on more usual surfaces is starting to get there! The overall gap to RWDs on clay is already smaller than with the last proto, and I haven't played with many settings just yet. Also, the gap seems to have shrunken a lot in the hands of a top driver. I need to look into this further, but it may mean that either it has gotten a lot more potential pace that top drivers can squeeze out (which the last car didn't), or it has become much easier to drive/switch to from an RWD (which would benefit all drivers). Either way, it's only good news!
I believe some pictures have been taken of the car, and a video was made after the finals of the car in action.
Oh, and before I forget, last week the first version of the tailor made FWD body arrived. I couldn't paint it on time to race with it, but I'll get to this soon. It gives the car a very distinctive look, it really suits the car. So stay tuned!