Adrien Bertin & Oscar Jansen talk about Corsatec

Circus RC News: Hi Adrien and Oscar, thank you for giving us this interview today. Could you introduce yourselves in a few words even I think our readers already know you quite well!

Adrien Bertin: Hello Chris ! Thank you for having this interview with us. My name is Adrien Bertin, 45 years young, started RC in 1987, and 3 times IFMAR world champion.

Oscar Jansen: Oscar Jansen, 55 years young, started RC in 1978 (….), 5 times EFRA European champion.

Circus RC News: The launch of Corsatec was a big surprise! How and why was the company started?

Adrien Bertin: The idea was to reach the next step in our professional career and getting an own company after being in charge of many successful projects. With the epidemic situation and having Oscar free professionally the conclusion was that our combined experience would be a guaranty of success. We share the same passion and competition spirit, so the idea became a very quickly a reality.

Circus RC News: Let’s talk about your specific knowledge; nitro for Adrien and electric for Oscar. Adrien, can you tell us about Corsatec engines and the philosophy you followed to design the range of products?

Adrien Bertin: My main goal is always the same, trying to do the best possible with the package that is available. The nitro market has drastically changed, and the numbers made in the past are not reachable or more difficult to reach with all the consequences that you have afterwards in term of economical return.

The remaining market mainly is the pure competition one, so it’s more challenging; but with having less volume you can focus more on details. I have professional Italian partners that I am working with for a while, which have invested a lot in a new production system, and they support our project by giving new opportunities in term of quality and dedication.

Corsatec gave us the chance to activate this system as the business model was planned for it. We have raced a full year with the products with great success and even big race wins, so it was a confirmation that our choices were good. The CT line of engines will be simple to understand for our customers, competitive in racing as well in pricing.

Circus RC News: The tracks, layout and grip have changed a lot in the last few years. Having to use fuel with less nitro has also affected the efficiency of the engines and their fuel consumption. Are these things you took in mind when designing your nitro engines?

Adrien Bertin: Yes the engine has been from the start being developed in that direction. With the new regulation in Europe regarding nitro % levels being more or less divided by 2, this means that the challenge is huge in terms of performances and reliability losses.

We have less chemical energy potential in the fuel, so we lost power in any case and also this makes the engine more sensitive to the tune. I paid a lot of attention to this by making an engine with the maximum bottom response and remain internal efficiency.

Circus RC News: We saw very soon that the design was a success with wins and podiums in major international events such as the EFRA European championship in Portugal and IFMAR world championship en Spain. Did you have to make any modifications such as changing the exhaust or venturi to adjust to the track conditions or is the stock engine flexible enough to do without?

Adrien Bertin: As previously mentioned ,the original design was made for this new rule but the good thing is that result with higher nitro percentage has been also great. The stock set up covers most of the configuration. What can be done is to remove a shim of the combustion chamber when we use with 16% EU mixture in altitude.

Circus RC News: Which exhaust pipe do you advise?

Adrien Bertin: Our 2180 pipe is giving us the best balance with also a specific sound!

Circus RC News: Is there a specific fuel you suggest?

Adrien Bertin: There are many good fuel on the market. With David (Ronnefalk, CT official works driver) we have used successfully RunnerTime in the past years but other give good result as well. I do recommend anyway to have a fuel with castor oil inside.

Circus RC News: Are you also gonna expand the Corsatec range of nitro engines to 1/8th GT and 1/8th on-road classes?

Adrien Bertin: It’s on my plan, even if these markets are not as big as they were before. We had so much to do to be able to offer a full range of products from the start that choices were needed. But I like and miss on-road racing so it could be a good excuse to be back on the field for these classes.

Circus RC News: Corsatec have released the official announcement about David Ronnefalk and the more surprising one from Robert Batlle. Besides representing the brand, what are their roles in the team?

Adrien Bertin: First of all, I would like to thank David for the essential role he is playing in Corsatec and the trust he gave us from the start. I am not sure it would have been possible without him, so he is definitely a key player in the Corsatec project.

More than winning races, we are testing together the products and it helps to have the maximum info from our team. David also owns his company Ronnefalk Racing, so he will be Corsatec distributor for Sweden.

Robert has joined us in the same spirit, and it was important for us to get also new view on our work, as with David we are working for many years now together. Robert will be in charge of the Spanish market, so we will be able to be on many racing fields represented by multiple IFMAR world champions. It’s already a great start for us to be supported by them.

Circus RC News: The Corsatec website is online. Could you tell us more about it?

Adrien Bertin: The website is our platform to present and sell our products worldwide. It’s an essential tool that took us more time than expected to be fully operational. But now anybody will be able to reach out our line via this channel . Distributors are essential for us but in some area it’s not always easy to be represented, so the web shop will give access to all Corsatec products in any conditions.

Circus RC News: Oscar, we all know your work on electric powered systems like motors, ESC and batteries. What where your expectations when developing Corsatec products?

Oscar Jansen: Firstly, a big thanks to Adrien and David to make it possible to start CT, and a bigger thanks to all on the background helping us creating and continuing it. Without their advice, support, trust, and passion we would not be where we are now. For me, the 1/8 and 1/10 racing electric categories are certainly the categories which can evolve the most, and therefore continue to be the future categories in RC.

A sure fact is that strict regulated events and classes make it difficult to create big innovations, but as example take FIA F1 : although strict regulated, there is still enough space to make some new breakthroughs and be innovative. As technology always evolves, it is my expectation and goal to bring with CT new developments and technologies to the RC market in the spirit of the regulations, at an affordable price. A first priority is to have the good factories behind you and make them understand our/your ideas, which I think worked out really well.

Circus RC News: How is the feeling with the motors and speed controllers for 1/8th vehicles?

Oscar Jansen: An excellent question. It sounds maybe a bit strange, but in the 1/8 EP classes (particularly buggy) the feeling is much more important then in smaller scaled cars. The main reason for this is that the battery voltage, which is double (4S) or triple (6S) of whats used in 1/10 (2S) as example. This extra voltage boost makes it possible to have a big increase in torque, which is always way more than the car or tires can handle due to the way electric motors behave (which is maximum power at low KV/RPM).

Throttle sensitivity and linear power curves were and are very very big areas where we focused on, and this must therefore be in perfect harmony with the electric power motion triangle (motor, ESC, battery/charger). So my ‘some’ years experience at world championship race winning levels come in very handy here, with Adrien and David double confirming the big progress we made here.

Circus RC News: Same question for 1/10th vehicles.

Oscar Jansen: As mentioned earlier above, the lower voltage make the car more driveable from itself already, of which many of you are aware of this by not even charging the batteries to its operational limit (8.4V). This is of course not ideal, but its a way to ‘solve’ some issues.

So for 1/10, the focus was still on sensored driveability, which is of course excellent, but at the same time low CG, lower weight and lower operational temperatures are required. So here we went a very innovative way which will surprise quite a few for sure.

Circus RC News: Can we use the motors and speed controllers in other classes like 1/8th GT or 1/10th touring?

Oscar Jansen: The ESC’s we developed for 1/10 and 1/8 can surely be used in any other categories, as they both offer a wide setup range via remote APP technology, which is something obligatory in the racing scene. Anyone who has tried it (and that were quite a few the last year) said its obligatory and a must have.

Motor choice wise its obligatory to change, as simply some classes have different requirements. However said this, if a CT charger is used in combination with our new CT battery technology, some may not find it necessary to use other motors at all.

Circus RC News: Are there any preset settings to help drivers find a setting that matches their driving style and/or track conditions?

Oscar Jansen: Yes, the ESC has initially the presets as Adrien, David, and Robert decided being the best for any condition. I think the throttle sensitivity setting will be fine for 99% of the drivers and is also the most important one to change. The brake settings are very driver, car and track specific, so a wide range of detailed settings is optionally available.

And of course via the CT APP and CT website the racer will be able to update any changes and settings that we feel need improvements. But of course we look forward to their comments as well.  

Circus RC News: The Corsatec product line also includes batteries and chargers. Could you tell us more about that?

Oscar Jansen: As briefly mentioned earlier, also here is space for innovation. Its no big news that battery development is moving fast, and luckily I am fortunate to have first hand involvement in testing and knowledge of new developments.

There is a big progress on battery safety and its cycle life, in particular in super low IR demanding areas. As many 1/10 stock class racers will know and confirm, IR is one of the key éléments in going faster when voltage limit rules are applied, and if low weight is combine its even better.

And for 1/8 EP racers linear discharge feeling and extreme duration (in cycle life and available capacity) are key. So we developed for all classes its specific advantages, and the small but powerful CT charger has the ability to maximize the available battery advantages for the racer.

Circus RC News: Thank you both for this interview! See you soon!

Oscar Jansen: Thank you Chris for your time and effort to give us the chance to introduce CT to the racers!

Adrien Bertin: Thanks Chris for all the years of close friendship and support, its a real pleasure!

Oscar’s photos: RAB hobbies & RCinfos