The team from Kyosho that entered the worlds went in with awesome drivers and very quick car as well....also they had arguably the best team of drivers in the world.
AE drivers copped some serious bad luck during the finals, especially Craig Drescher who crashed with a radio glitch whilst leading his final with only 4 minutes to go, and apparently suffering from radio glitches through a number of heats.
Serpent also suffered its share of bad luck with its tyres held up in customs, so apparently this limited their ability to test the car under race setup conditions during the practice sessions.
All in all i dont think AE is too far off the pace with the NTC3, but the other teams have really poured a lot of effort into their new cars, and the fruits of this are now starting to show.
To remain competitive at the top level AE are going to have to keep a elite crew of drivers, and I`m sure i read somewhere that they`d lost Pavidis to another team which cant help their cause.....just my 2 cents worth
Cheers