The debutant of the 2024 season was in the top 3 qualifying at Moscow Raceway .
- Vladislav Popov won the qualification of the first stage of the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series
- Sergey Kuznetsov at the debut stage RDS GP confidently made it to the TOP-16
- Damir Idiyatulin and Anton Kozlov failed to pass the TOP-32 stage
The new season of the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series 2024 started at the Moscow Raceway — on Sunday, April 28, qualifying races and duels of the TOP-32 stage took place at the circuit near Volokolamsk. Both sessions of the day were not without sensations.
The first surprises came from the very first qualifying group, which included debutants of the country's main drift championship — results of 90 points or more immediately began to appear, and a number of achievements could not be surpassed even by more experienced rivals. The main sensation was the result of Sergei Kuznetsov — a rookie of the AUTOBAN AIMOL team driving the Russian hypercar Flanker F scored 96 points out of 100 on his first attempt, and secured his status as a qualifying leader with his second pass by 93 points.
And it was not the most experienced Roman Tivodar (Takayama Forward Auto) with a score of 95 points or Grigory Gusev (Lukoil Racing Drift Team) with a score of 96 points who was able to surpass him, but last season’s debutant Vladislav Popov. The young pilot of the Evolution Yuka ADV by Obsessed Motorsport team produced two phenomenal runs of 96 and 96.5 points, which brought the young athlete the first victory in his career in the RDS GP qualifying. Let us remind you that Vladislav opened his account of victories in the series in 2023, winning a stage on the same Moscow Raceway track, but in the “reverse” configuration.
Based on the results of qualification, in addition to the pilots listed above, the “club 90+” also included eight more athletes, including Evgeniy Losev (Fresh Racing) with a score of 94 points, Georgy Chivchyan (Takayama Forward Auto) on the new Forward Racing RZ34-001 with 93.5 points and series debutant Artyom Shabanov, defending the colors of the TimeUp team in RDS GP, with 92.5 points.
Arkady Tsaregradtsev (Evolution Yuka ADV by Obsessed Motorsport), Damir Idiyatulin (Fresh Racing) and Anton Kozlov (Carville Racing) performed unexpectedly poorly; although they were close to the mark of 90 points, they were unable to conquer it and based on the results of qualifying took places below the tenth line of the protocols. As a result, the grid of doubles races brought the security forces Tsaregradtsev and Idiyatulin together in the TOP-32 — in this duel the Tsar became the strongest. But even here there were some sensations, since in the TOP-16 the leader of “Evolution Yuka ADV by Obsessed Motorsport” will have to meet with his partner and student Vladislav Popov, who advanced to the next stage of paired races through the bye run.
A similar intra-team battle on Sunday befell the TimeUp team, where Artyom Shabanov, after a brilliant qualification, ended up with the founder of the team, Leonid Schneider — the latter could not oppose anything to the bright debutant and at this point stopped participating in the first stage of the 2024 season. Anton Kozlov, last year’s vice-champion, also failed to advance beyond the TOP-32 in a duel with Andrey Astapov (Lukoil Racing Drift Team), probably not having had time to fully get comfortable behind the wheel of his new BMW 2 Series.
RDS GP 2024. 1st stage. Moscow Raceway. Top 16:
- Vladislav Popov – Arkady Tsaregradtsev
- Sergey Sak – Denis Migal
- Roman Tivodar – Maxim Grossman
- Evgeny Losev – Nikita Shikov
- Sergey Kuznetsov – Andrey Astapov
- Georgy Chivchyan – Artyom Shabanov
- Grigory Gusev – Nikolay Gorkovenko
- Timofey Dobrovolsky – Anatoly Shcherbak
In the end the only team that was able to reach the TOP-16 with its full complement was Takayama Forward Auto. The Krasnoyarsk team, competing as the current RDS GP champion, made a serious bid for victory in the team competition at Moscow Raceway. Two pilots each will represent “Evolution Yuka ADV by Obsessed Motorsport”, AUTOBAN AIMOL, Fresh Racing, TimeUp and Lukoil Racing Drift Team.
The fight for prizes in the first stage of the Grand Prix of the Russian Drift Series 2024 will continue on the track Moscow Raceway on Monday, April 29. At 13:00 Moscow time, the TOP-16 pair races will start, based on the results of which pairs of participants in further stages will be formed.