Drift World Champion

From 23 to 25 September, the STC " PrimRing GP " (Artem, Sunny, 2a) will host the Asia-Pacific D1 PrimRing GP. The General Manager of the Japanese D1 GP Oy Toshiyuki Championship, in an interview with the correspondent, described the criteria for quality trains, objective judges and assessed the prospects of Russian pilots in the upcoming championship.

♪ Have you ever imagined that the D1 competitions would take place in Russia?

♪ The history of our championship began in 2001 and until we met Vitaly Verkenko in 2010. Honestly, I didn't realize there was anything that could happen in Russia. But I liked the man and his business approach, and it all started, so there was a joint idea to have a competition here.

♪ How did the pilots feel about going to Russia? You didn't have to convince them?

♪ Russia is not the first country where we are conducting exit competitions. We went to Thailand and the United States before. I knew what teams were willing to do internationally. No one had to be persuaded to travel to Russia, all agreed, in 2014 and 2015. This time we changed the selection system-- Japan's top six pilots came from our D1-2016 championship. We feel the heat of the heat, and so that we are not defeated, we have brought our war machines.

♪ Why is your championship called D1?

♪ In the world of drift, we're the first, so we're D1.

♪ What's the difference between D1 and other competitions?

♪ There are three main ingredients: maximum speed in the setting, the largest end angle and the steepness of the gears. That's the most important thing. It's a hallmark of D1 that we're moving around the world. For these three criteria, there is a separate competition between single trains (Tanso - Prim). We believe that without a beautiful quality single race, there can be no beautiful couples. Pilots that were able to show skill in single races, as a result, show mature and saturated steam performances (Tsuiso, Prim).