Rain affects Day 1 final practice at 1:8 Euros
After a damp start to Day 1 of the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships, the inclement weather would affect the days final round of practice arriving just as some of the title favourites took to the track for last and extended practice round at the German event. With Darren Bloomfield having just posted the fastest time for the 9-minute run in Group 8 of 15, as group 9 headed by defending champion David Ronnefalk took to the track the rain which had been dodged all day arrived leaving the Kyosho driver to pull up after just one full lap. With the track wet no one from Group 10, which included Mugen team-mates Robert Batlle and Lee Martin, would take to the track. Also setting the fastest lap of the round albeit 2/10ths slower than his fastest lap of P3, the closest on pace to Bloomfield’s Agama was Xray’s Martin Bayer who was only 13/1000ths off.
Running 17 laps over the 9-minutes, missing out on 18 by just 8/10ths of a second, Bloomfield was pleased with his pace having left his A8 unchanged from P3 admitting he got lucky to get the run in just before the rain.
Having made a number of changes to his Kyosho MP9 for the final practice Ronnefalk was frustrated at losing the track time but said there was little point in continuing in the wet. Although the threat of rain is likely to be an ongoing factor throughout the week here in Germany, Batlle also felt there was little to be gained from taking to the track.
Running in Group 6, using the run to evaluate tyres, Bayer was said he was ‘happy’ with his first day of the championships. Having only adjusted the roll bars on his LRP powered XB8 over the day he ended up on soft compound AKA Catapult tyres which he said worked ‘really good’. Looking to tomorrow last year’s podium finisher said he will wait to see what the weather does overnight and see how the track looks in the morning before deciding on a plan of action for the day. Day 2’s schedule will see drivers get four rounds of practice starting with a very short untimed 2-minute run before getting down to the more serious business of two 10-minute seeding rounds of the which the last five minutes will determine the order of the qualifying heats.
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