The country’s main drift championship returns to Moscow

On Sep­tem­ber 2–3, the Moscow Race­way will host the sixth stage of the coun­try’s main drift cham­pi­onship. RDS GP pilots will have to dri­ve along a famil­iar sec­tion of the track in the oppo­site direc­tion.

The fight for the cham­pi­onship in the Russ­ian Drift Series Grand Prix (RDS GP) is inten­si­fy­ing to the lim­it — there are only two stages left before the end of the 2023 sea­son, and the gap in points between the lead­ers of the indi­vid­ual and team clas­si­fi­ca­tions is min­i­mal. The first autumn week­end will deter­mine who goes into the final as the favorite.

The cir­cuit near Voloko­lam­sk is well known to RDS GP pilots and fans, but for the sec­ond year in a row the autumn stage at Moscow Race­way is being held in an unusu­al con­fig­u­ra­tion for the par­tic­i­pants. The race uses the same scor­ing area as the first stage of the sea­son, but ath­letes must com­plete it in the oppo­site direc­tion. This option was first test­ed in 2022, and the new route con­fig­u­ra­tion was con­sid­ered suc­cess­ful.

Despite the appar­ent sim­plic­i­ty and minor changes at first glance, the “reverse” ver­sion of the route pos­es a seri­ous chal­lenge to ath­letes.

The high­light of the eval­u­at­ed sec­tion is the pro­filed sec­ond turn with a vari­able radius, the pas­sage of which in the “clas­si­cal” direc­tion of the track (coun­ter­clock­wise) the pilots have already per­fect­ed. But the par­tic­i­pants of the Grand Prix of the Russ­ian Drift Series are just learn­ing how to dri­ve in the oppo­site direc­tion — not only the tra­jec­to­ry changes, but also the rhythm of the dri­ve, which can only be adjust­ed to dur­ing train­ing.

Con­tenders for vic­to­ry can be con­sid­ered both liv­ing leg­ends of drift­ing and oth­er equal­ly expe­ri­enced pilots. We think the names of Roman Tivo­dar, Arkady Tsare­gradt­sev, Geor­gy Chivchyan, Evge­ny Losev, Charles Ng and Sergey Kabar­gin are famil­iar to many motor­sport fans. We are con­fi­dent that the bat­tle for the cham­pi­onship will be inter­est­ing and vibrant.

Sergey Kabar­gin, who dri­ves a Flanker F super­car of his own design, will delight the guests of the Russ­ian Drift Series Grand Prix with anoth­er of his rac­ing projects, the Hot-Rod Fly­ing Brick, which has not yet appeared at the RDS GP stages. You can see the exclu­sive Hot Rod at the loca­tion of the STARS PЁR STARS AIMOL team in the ser­vice park, and in addi­tion, the “Fly­ing Brick” will take part in the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the com­pe­ti­tion.

Schedule of the 6th stage of RDS GP 2023 at the Moscow Raceway:

September 2, Saturday
  • 9:00–10:00 – train­ing
  • 10:00–13:00 – qual­i­fi­ca­tion
  • 14:00–15:00 — offi­cial open­ing of the com­pe­ti­tion and auto­graph ses­sion
  • 15:30–18:30 — pair races TOP 32
September 3, Sunday
  • 9:00–10:30 – train­ing
  • 11:00–12:30 — offi­cial open­ing of the com­pe­ti­tion and auto­graph ses­sion
  • 13:00–14:30 — pair races TOP 16
  • 16:00–18:00 — dou­bles races TOP 8 / TOP 4 / final
  • 18:30–19:00 — award cer­e­mo­ny

You can fol­low the events on the track both from the stands of the Moscow Race­way and live on the RDS TV plat­form. Qual­i­fy­ing races will be avail­able to watch for free after sim­ple reg­is­tra­tion, while dou­bles races will be avail­able with a sub­scrip­tion.