Expected to be one of the big favourites for the 2024 season, PACE Motorsport’s drivers have alternated between hot and cold at the wheel of the new LifeLive TN11 chassis.
While Romet Tsirna made one of the biggest improvements in the CrossCar category, moving from 15th to 5th overall between 2023 and 2024, he was also the best performing driver in the Pace Motorsport team.
Although the Estonian didn’t manage to win a single race, with three podiums in his pocket, he managed to beat his two team-mates Martin Juga (1 podium from five qualifications for a final) and Jimmie Osterberg (two qualifications for a final), who finished eighth and tenth respectively in the overall standings.
A level of performance that did not disappoint PACE Motorsport Team Principal Jarmo Voisa.
‘I’d say our season has been one of ups and downs, but that’s mainly because we lacked experience with these new chassis,” insists the Estonian team boss.
‘But overall I think we can be proud of what we have achieved in our first season with the TN11 chassis. We managed to get one of our drivers into the top five, so it’s not a bad result.
In fact, the only downside to the 2024 season for the PACE Motorsport team was the penultimate round of the championship at Nysum, where none of their three drivers managed to qualify for the final in the weekend’s two races.
‘Nysum was clearly the race where we had the most problems. In fact, we never managed to adapt to the rain. We had never raced in such conditions before and although the LifeLive factory could have helped us, the only data they had was limited to autocross events and we couldn’t transfer that to our machines because it had nothing to do with the subtleties of a rallycross track.’
‘It’s all part of the learning curve, but this 2024 season will be useful for us in the future. For example, we know that some of our rivals did some testing in Buxtehude to prepare for the final event of the season, but that wasn’t the case for us. It’s an example that shows that if we want to compete at the highest level, we need to look at things differently with a view to 2025. Nevertheless, Romet Tsirna’s fifth place in the overall standings is undoubtedly a result slightly above our expectations at the start of the championship. So we can only be happy with this performance.’
One thing is for sure, Jarmo Voisa is aware that his team is not so far from the truth. In the 40 races of the 2024 season, from Q1 to the final, the PACE Motorsport drivers have set no less than ten fastest race laps.
‘We know that this chassis works perfectly in the European Autocross Championship, but I don’t think it’s a big problem to adapt it completely to the RallyX Championship tracks. In fact, if you take into account the first half of the season, when we were able to compete on dry tracks, we managed to set some of the fastest times. Admittedly, we have not been lucky, but lap times don’t lie and our performances in terms of pure speed prove this.’
‘On the other hand, we know that we need to improve in wet conditions. We still have some work to do. We don’t really know what prevented us from performing in those conditions. We struggled to find the right set-up, but that’s one of the things we’ll be looking at in the off-season.”
As you will have noticed, Pace Motorsport will return to the RallyX championship in 2025 with some strong arguments.
