With Mack Bakkum winning the 2016-2017 iRacing Road Pro Series and feeding into the existing rostrum of Martti Pietilä, Mitchell deJong, and reigning champion Martin Krönke, Coanda’s iRacing World Championship Series season has four cars for the 2017 season.
The season start March 4th at Interlagos, and after twelve races the season ends October 7th, at COTA. Mack (#16) and Martti (#96) will each drive a purple-black car, with Martin (#5) and Mitchell (#24) racing in a purple-white MP4-30. The livery by Andwern Design is adorned by our sponsors and partners, namely Virtual Racing School, Heusinkveld Engineering, SimQuip, RaceSpot, and JoelRealTiming.
How have you prepared for the new season?
Mack: “I haven’t done anything special to prepare for the season. After I won the Pro Series, I took a little break from the car and went on holiday. Now I’m slowly getting back up to speed, practising for the season opener.”
Martti: “Pretty much as usual. I’ve done the NEO endurance races, which have kept me in ‘race mode’ throughout the winter. Apart from that, I took a break to have my batteries as full as possible prior to start of the seasons. In the past few weeks it has been the time to get back in the office to get myself comfortable with the car again!”
Martin: “Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much preparation due to technical limitations, but testing went really well, and Martti & Mack have done a great job with the setup.”
Mitchell: “I’ve been taking part in the Blancpain Endurance Series to qualify for the iBGTWC and occasionally in the NEO Endurance Series with the HPD ARX-01C. Additionally, I’ve been doing more testing and racing in the real car to prepare for real racing this year.”
What are your personal goals for the upcoming season?
Mack: “I want to be able to contribute to Martin’s championship aspirations. If I can take away points from his other competitors I think that would be a success. Other than that I really want to beat Martin in at least one race, which will be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done!”
Martti: “My personal goals remain the same as always, do the best that I can. Last season I took a major step forward in performance, so I’m definitely looking forward to making a similar step once more!”
Martin: “As always, to do a better season than last year.”
Mitchell: “Due to my real racing schedule being a bit more packed this year I will be missing a few races. With that said, my personal goals for this season are to hopefully fight for podium positions at the races that I will be able to attend and support my teammates the best that I can.”