Ricardo Monteiro, 2017 Portuguese Champion!
Tekno RC would like to congratulate Ricardo Monteiro for winning the 2017 Portuguese National Champion title in both Electric and Nitro classes! Here is a detailed report from Ricardo, explaining how all five rounds of the Championship evolved and how he managed to top the sheets:
“With the Nats racing calendar finishing up this weekend, it’s time for a recap of how it all went down throughout the 5 rounds of the Portuguese Championship.
The 1st round was for me the most nervous, as it was my first official outing with the new package (Car, engine, tires, etc). I wanted to show that I had a similar or even better pace than the previous year, and that’s what I set out to do. In nitro, I felt like I had the pace for the win but unfortunately, a technical issue left me out with no chance but to DNF in the semi.
I knew It was game on after this as I had already used my throwout and I needed to be consistent and have good results to get the title.
In E-Buggy, I had an easy time getting the TQ, but after some dumb mistakes I couldn’t convert it into a win and had to settle for 2nd, nonetheless a great start for the e-buggy season.
For the 2nd round we were getting more and more used to the package, and after trying out a few things the car felt amazing on Saturday during practice and I believed this time no issues where gonna plague me. With fast and controlled driving, I endured an early fight and then later on powered through the field to get me the 1st win of the season and Tekno’s first in Portugal ?
It would be an amazing round for E-Buggy as well as I got the TQ and win that I was missing from the previous round
3rd round time and this one was going to be a hard one, the track was more old school with a loamy surface and tons and tons of bumps.
I worked on the car as much as I could to try and make it cope with the bumps but I knew it was gonna be a tough 45 mins race. I tried my best but this time I felt I was a little off the pace and 2nd was all I could get.
Same in E-Buggy as I couldn’t get my things together and did some dumb mistakes to end up 2nd.
The 4th race came around and once again I felt like something was off with me and my package…I was not feeling very confident with my speed but tried to make up for it with consistency and that’s what I worked on for the weekend. In the end, the consistency was paying off as I got as high as 2nd at one point in the final, but some hard laps from me took me out of the podium spots towards the end of the race leaving me in 4th and needing a great last round to be able to get the overall title.
In E-Buggy, I would get the Tq again which would leave me one step closer to the title, along with a 2nd place finish after some nice fights in the finals I knew I had a safety cushion to get the title in the last round.
Onto the last one and I knew it was gonna be grueling The track has dirt mixed with some product which turns it into a concrete-like circuit, it was gonna put a tremendous amount of load on the whole package so we knew we had to be extra careful when preparing everything for the final.
My pace was good but I think my consistency was better and that together with my flawless package during the 45 min final gave me the win that I needed and the overall title for Nitro. I really couldn’t believe that It had happened as I knew it was gonna be super hard to get it, but you can’t win without some luck and I finally had it this time.
In E-Buggy I managed to get the TQ once again so I was even more safe with regards to season standing, nonetheless, I wanted to go out and fight one more time for the win and show that my package was indeed the best. After winning A1 and having a technical issue in A2, the last final was very contested with some close racing and even though I came 2nd I was very happy with how It all went down because after all, I had just gotten the double championship for the year.
It is my second Nitro championship, the first E-Buggy one and the first two for Tekno in Portugal so I would say it was a great year for both of us ? #TeknoTakeover”