Serpent’s World Championship Report
Racer received this race report from Serpent, who were attending their first World Championship in this category with the new Cobra buggy:
IFMAR WC Off-Road : Billy Easton takes fifth place in final with Serpent Cobra
Serpent Cobra reaches highest ranking of new off-road brand at 2010 WC
Serpent is very proud with the achieved results at the 2010 IFMAR WC in Pattaya, Thailand. The small Serpent team with only seven drivers did very well overall too. Billy Easton was the highest ranking Serpent with a fantastic fifth place in the breath-taking hour-long final. Easton showed what the Serpent Cobra truly is capable off. With the car only released in June 2010, there is still a lot to learn and get even better performance in the near future, but its already very fast now.
All Serpent Cobra cars worked really well. Just before the race the new radio boxes were ready and brought to the track. During the WC, none of the Serpent drivers had any technical issue with the car. No servo failures at all and no parts breaking. This shows the Serpent Cobra is a very strong and durable car, and performs on the very highest level at the World Championships too.
Billy Easton just barely missed out on the semi-final and had to run the quarter final first. The Pro-Line tyres on this specific track were not the easiest ones, but with the right set-up, Billy managed to get the best out of the car anway. In the last lap of the quarter final being in fourth position, he was overtaken in the penultimate corner by Spanish ace Borja Hernandez, but still managed to squeeze out some extra traction and move ahead of Borja in the very last corner, and made it into the semi this way still. A fantastic and breath-taking move. Thrilling action that saw the crowds going wild.
In the semi-final, Billy was really on fire, and few laps after the start he was able to run in fourth positon on the tail of Jared Tebo for while and even got into third for while too. Easton finished in second place just six seconds behind Tebo in first. He also recorded the fastest lap time as well and would start the final from fifth position on the grid.
The final went really well, with the usual turmoil right after the start. King, Tebo and Hara were able to get some space due to this, but Easton was always close, ready to move up. The Cobra stayed very fast throughout the final, even when the tyres after 30 minutes were losing traction. Pit stops were well timed, fast and clean with Jaoquin refuelling and Salven doing the timing. In the last laps the tyres really were hard to drive, so it was impossible to hold on to fourth place, but fifth at the end is a super-result anyway, finishing on the same lap as third placed Tebo and just two laps shy clear of the winner King.
At the very high level, it was a one-man show for Billy as his team mates had not been able to test in Pattaya before and also had not had their cars for long. Still the team-work on the set-up of the car, made the performance for all Cobra drivers better in the end. We would like to thank all Serpent drivers, their mechanics and supporters for their great efforts. Billy Easton, Chad Phillips, Niclas Brunsberg, Jordan Go, Le Hua Lin, Clement Pancho and Ka Yick Kwong. Also thanks to Serpent Asia, Michael Salven and Stef Helvensteijn from Serpent Holland to assist wherever needed. In particular we like to thank Billy Easton for a great performance all week. For Billy it was a dream come true to get a car designed and raced by himself into the A final of a WC. Also thanks to Joaquin Desoto who did a super job as mechanic with very fast and clean pit stops.
The organisers put on a great race, with excellent facilities and atmosphere to match. We look forward to the next big races, with the knowledge that many drivers are well impressed with the Serpent Cobra performance and durability, who would like to get their hands of the Cobra car soon too and make the team of Serpent racers in off-road bigger! Billy Easton will give us his insight into the WC as soon as he has time to make one of his famous race reports. After the Worlds, he jumped onto a plane to test the Serpent Cobra-T 811-T before it goes into production. Stay tuned….
Source: Serpent
