Spa-Francorchamps hosted round 1 of World eX Bizz – the little sister of the World eX Championship which means business. The participants are networking at highspeed, and for Season 4 the eX ZERO has been tamed a little bit: 800 instead of 1,000 electric horses. According to the Bizz drivers, the sustainable beast – as they call it – is now much more enjoyable to drive for non-professionals.
World eX Bizz will bring popular wild card drivers to the series as the “big small” slotcar series RCCO has been doing it for more than 30 years. This time: Le Mans winner and DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller who secured the pole position in the very last moment of qualifying, beating defending Champion Julius Martin by just 0.047 seconds.
Martin is the HUNTED this year in World eX Bizz as he clinched the title in his rookie season last year ending the winning streak of famous #windshadow man Michael Niemas. Do you remember #RaceHome?
The battle was on between Rocky and Julius right from the start of Race 1, and it was not easy at all for Mike to beat the HUNTED and score his fifth victory in the series.
After a low-key qualifying, tv racing‘s Andre Dietzel from Volkswagen Communications fought his way to P3 taking the last spot on the podium in a fierce battle with his teammate Steffen Walter.
NReSports’ Stefan Waschow finished first in the new AM category ahead of Thomas Voigt.
It was all in all a good day for the World eX co-founders. Voigt was able to grab the overall lead in Race 2 on Lap 1 and was involved in the move of the day when his business partner Mike Rockenfeller attempted to pass him and Stefan Waschow at the same time with a bold move on the Kemmel straight.
This reminded a little bit of the famous pass Mika Häkkinen did on Michael Schumacher during their glorious battle in Formula 1.
The pass did not go well though for Mike who overshoot into Les Combes and had to let Stefan and Thomas go again.
Thomas moved out of the way quickly, knowing very well he could not match Rocky’s speed and Stefan did the same a little bit later when Rocky attacked him with a bold move at Blanchimont.
Mike Rockenfeller scored another victory with Stefan Waschow being the AM winner in P2 overall in front of his NReSports teammate Michael Niemas and Thomas Voigt.
There was drama for two of the pre-season top favourites: Steffen Walter was involved in a big pile-up at Les Combes on Lap 1 and could not avoid the stuck eX ZERO of Julius Martin on the exit of Eau Rouge one lap later.
Both were out of the contention right on the spot and happy this is only virtual racing.
Season 2 thus did not start in the best way for the defending champion, but Julius Martin remains the HUNTED when the series heads to the brand-new rFactor 2 track at Daytona in Florida for Round 2 of World eX Bizz on March 7.
Stay tuned for Episode 2 of “The HUNTED”.
