Electric Motorcycle Racing
Electric motorcycle eracing has a new World Champion, Matthias Himmelmann, winning the top TTXGP crown for Munch Racing from Germany, beating off stiff competition from teams from Italy, UK, USA, Belgium, India and China.
Himmelmann made TTXGP history and set a high bar for any challengers in 2011. Despite starting on pole and finishing first on the Munch motorcycle, he was only just able to hold off Alessandro Brannetti on the twin-Agni powered eCRP.
While second place was a disappointment to the CRP Racing team, it was a miracle that they even started, given the problems they’d had all weekend with the controllers on both TTXGP motorcycles. Rounding off the podium was the TTXGP UK Champion, Jenny Tinmouth on the Team Agni bike.
The difference in power between the motorcycles was significant, yet this is also what has made this series so exciting. TTXGP teams have had the liberty to try practically whatever they can in order to win.
Although the eCRP motorcycle had much less power than the Munch bike, Brannetti was able to overtake Jenny Tinmouth after she passed him on the first lap. By lap 6, Brannetti was leading, with Himmelmann gaining on him each time down the front straight, only to be denied on the entry to T1 by Brannetti’s late braking ability.
In the final lap, Himmelmann was able to slipstream Brannetti before the start/finish line for an easier lead down the front straight, creating a gap that Brannetti could not close before the end of the electric motorcycle race.
The first Chinese factory team, Team Zongshen, finished an impressive fourth and have set themselves up to be part of TTXGP 2011 with a strong platform to build from. Chi-Fung Ho, an experienced racer from China showed tremendous skill in keeping Pete Ward from the Electric Hussar team in 5th place.
Morris Motorcycles Racing Team (MMRT) followed the Mavizen of the Electric Hussar and came in 6th with Peter Linden showing the strongest ever finish for MMRT. MMRT have committed to return for 2011 with a brand new package and team to build from the success of 2010.
Rob Moon (Team Agni) and Thomas Schuricht (Munch Racing) filled 7th and 8th places, respectively.
Campus Francorchamps started strongly with the third fastest lap, but suffered a mechanical failure in lap 7. With a motor failure, Fastre came into the pits and went out again and finished the race on half power.
Jennifer Bromme of Team Werkstatt from the North American Championship finished 10th. She showed great improvement and went sub 2-minutes in lap 3.
Another team that suffered constant technical problems was Tork India. Despite winning the first ever round of the TTXGP UK Championship, they never really found their form. Although Antonio Maeso did start well with the 6th fastest lap time.
Alexey Ivanov from SMP Racing also suffered from an early technical failure during the warm up and could not start.
TTXGP Final/UEM 2010 World Series Final (Oct. 24, 2010):
Albacete, Spain; Track length: 3593 meters
1. Munch Racing/Matthias Himmelmann
TTXGP WORLD CHAMPION 2010
Best Lap: 01:43.871
Average speed over complete race: 120.8 km/h
2. CRP Racing/Alessandro Brannetti
01:44.100
120.71
3. Team Agni/Jenny Tinmouth
01.45.337
118.00
4. Team Zongshen/Chi-Fung Ho
01:47.710
116.14
5. Electric Hussar/Pete Ward
01:48.726
115.96
6. Morris Motorcycles Racing Team/Peter Lindén
01:50.450
110.99
7. Team Agni/Rob Moon
01:55.057
108.90
8. Munch Racing/Thomas Schuricht
01:55.278
108.14
9. Campus Francorchamps/Gregory Fastre
01:45.301
105.88 (minus 1 lap)
10. Werkstatt/Jennifer Bromme
1:57.835
103.35 (minus 1 lap)
11. Tork/Antonio Maeso
01:50.107
102.34 (minus 1 lap)
12. SMP Racing /Alexey Ivanov
DNS (mechanical failure)
