Drift Force: Progress is slowly paying off 🎥
FORMULA DRIFT ORLANDO At the third round of Formula Drift 2022 in the USA, the world's most important league in drifting, Yves Meyer advanced to the round of 16. Thanks to improvements to the Toyota GT86, he could soon be even further ahead.
After the second event of the season at Road Atlanta, The Drift Force, the team from Nidwalden founded by Yves Meyer and Joshua Reynolds, had just one week to prepare for the next event at Orlando Speedworld in Florida. Working with their American partner team, noticeable improvements were nevertheless made to the Toyota GT86 in the short time available, which paid off in a pleasing way.
However, due to a defective sensor in the camshaft control system and a mechanical gearbox problem, the Swiss was only able to get used to the new track, consisting of an oval course and an infield, in a few laps on the two practice days.
It was only at the last minute that the Toyota Gazoo Racing Switzerland car was at the start in time for qualification. Yves Meyer then managed this effortlessly, which was a reward to the whole team.
Tough nut cracked
On race day, the 30-year-old from central Switzerland then met a tough nut in the first duel. Aurimas Bakchis, a Lithuanian who lives in California, has been a member of the professional drifting circuit for eleven years and has since won a total of nine Formula Drift events, finishing third overall in the championship in 2017, 2019 and 2021.
With awe and respect, but with a lot of confidence in himself and the technology of his 900-hp drift car, Meyer entered the battle against the veteran - and emerged as the surprising winner.
Yves Meyer: "It was a tremendous team effort up to that point. Because Bakchis had crashed into the wall in my chase run, I collided with his car, whereupon we had to repair it in a few minutes until my lead run. That also worked out thanks to help from all sides."
The accident and the repair work can be seen in the video above starting at 3:40 minutes.
Rain as a spoiler
Unfortunately, after a thunderstorm due to the accident, there was no time to tune the chassis to the wet surface. With a horsepower monster that was difficult to tame under these conditions, Yves Meyer therefore lost to his normally beatable opponent in the round of 16 and was eliminated.
Nevertheless, the Swiss returned home with many positive impressions.
Yves Meyer: "We made a huge leap forward in the set-up of the new KW-Competition suspension. Our speed on a dry track is off the charts, even my opponents noticed that in practice. I therefore feel highly motivated for the next event."
Reynolds must pass
His team partner Joshua Reynolds unfortunately had to watch because spare parts for his Toyota did not arrive in time due to logistics problems.
The American-born driver hopes to be back in action on the second weekend of June at Englishtown Raceway in New Jersey or, at the latest, in mid-July at the fifth event of the season at Madison Raceway in the US state of Illinois.
