User:Donnie Park/IFMAR World Championship – 1:10 Electric Touring Car

The IFMAR World Championship for 1:10 scale electric powered touring cars cars (officially "IFMAR ISTC World Championship"), is a world championship radio controlled car race hosted by IFMAR. It takes place biennially on even years since 2000, after a provisional World Cup race in 1998. Since then it became part of the IFMAR Electric On-road World Championships following the 1:12 on-road round since it began in 1998.

The event is open exclusively to 1:10 scale electric touring cars, widely known as International Scale Touring Car‎ (ISTC), characterized by its resemblance to road saloon cars found in touring car racing and its overall width cannot be more than 200mm wide but 190mm is widely used.

The chassis is based on its off-road counterpart, except with shorter travel suspension, different battery and motor layout, narrower and taller wheels and rubber tires to its now defunct PRO 10 counterpart.

Tamiya, who is credited for inventing the class in 1991, holds distinction for the most wins for manufacturers; its driver, Marc Rheinard of Germany, hold the record with three wins.

Schedule
Like the other 1:10 world championships, a maximum of 150 drivers take part, each continental blocs allocated 32 entries each, the host bloc an extra 10 and the final 10 allocated by IFMAR themselves.

The event follows the 1:12 Electric event, beginning on Friday with timed practice on day one, four qualifying heats on day two and for day three; two final qualifying sessions and race day over two heats. After each qualifying session, the best qualifier of the round is awarded zero points, 2 and 3 points for the 2nd and 3rd fastest qualifier and so on with the most points given to the slowest qualifier, driver who do not score a time or is disqualified is thus awarded 500 points. Of six rounds or five in some circumstances that force a round be cancelled, the best three performances counts toward the driver's overall performance, two best rounds counts toward three or four rounds completed and one round count toward two or one rounds. After all the points is totalled up, the driver with the least points is the best qualifier, thus is awarded a TQ (Top Qualifier) award, enabling them to start in front of the first round.

The groups are then split into ten groups of ten drivers in alphabets, pending on their performance in qualifying with A being the fastest of the groups

Race day starts with the slowest groups first, working its way to the next faster groups up to the fastest, the A-main, then progresses to the 2nd heat. . Each race run for a total of eight minutes with an extra 30 seconds to allow the driver to round their laps up.

Only the A-main, the group that carries the only hope of taking the world championship title, have three heats with only two best performances that counts and a final practice in the afternoon during race day.

History
In response to its rising popularity, the class gained recognition by IFMAR in 1996 as a demonstration race with the F1 class as a Manufacturer's Showcase event supporting the 1:12 scale and 1:10 scale pan car world championships, then was introduced in 1998 as a non-championship World Cup race to support the world championships. Briton David Spashett completed a hat-trick of his two championship titles in his home country by winning the touring car class with a Losi Street Weapon, which was a modified version of the XX-4 buggy.

Following the positive response to the World Cup race, the three voting blocs (EFRA, ROAR and FEMCA) unanimously voted to include the class as part of the official world championship round in 2000 between the 1:12 and PRO 10 events, won by Atsushi Hara.

Since the demise of the PRO 10 class afterward, the ISTC class have always followed the 1:12 class, running at weekends.

When Surikarn Chaidejsuriya, who was unknown even in his native Thailand, won the 2002 Worlds with a Tamiya his victory was seen as a major achievement for the brand as it helped to elevate them into a serious championship contender internationally and raised their market importance also in Asia.

Most represented in final
Note: No manufacturers have taken over 5 of 10 of the finals spot, the most have ever been is four. Italics on year represents in which a driver of the country or car manufacturer who failed to score a championship title, italics on nationalities indicate host nation.