Ronnefalk caps off qualifying with 4th TQ run
Having secured the overall TQ for the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in the penultimate round of qualifying and using the final qualifier to test a harder tyre for the final, the change did little to stop David Ronnefalk from dominating qualifying. Failing only to TQ the first of the five qualifiers yesterday due to his heat being first up on a damp track following overnight rain, even with a 4-second crash the defending champion took Q5 by over 5-seconds from Team Durango’s Joern Neumann. Again it was Elliott Boots who completed the Top 3, the British driver turning around his form in the final three qualifiers to secure 4th in the final qualification ranking behind Ronnefalk, Robert Batlle and Teemu Leino. Running a harder compound of AKA’s Catapult tyre, Ronnefalk said while the tyre took longer to come in by the end it felt really good. Having been the only driver to run a 27-lap time when on the ‘super soft’ compound qualifying tyre and worried about how the harder compound might effect his Kyosho MP9 the time sheets proved he had little to be concerned about as he again ran four of the 27 laps his rivals unable to break passed 28-sec laps.
Having only registered one Top 10 run, when he was 10th fastest in Q3, Neumann after his P2 run in Q5 said that the pace was always there but traffic and crashes meant he never registered a competitive time. Feeling he was on a similar pace in Q4 before losing about 7-seconds with an incident two laps in succession, he said his FX powered prototype Durango has been good all week, a fact he highlighted early on when he ran a Top 3 time in the second seeding practice despite missing the opening day of practice due to being stuck in hospital with a lip infection. Ending qualifying in 11th position, for his Semi Final the double 1:10 Electric Offroad European Champion will reduce the kick-up on his buggy for a little more steering. Having run Pro-Line’s Suburb tyre in X2 compound in qualifying the German plans to run these also in the Semi-Final. Should he bump up to the main event he will then switch to the new Fugitive tyre which he said while offering a very similar feel to the Suburb is ‘so durable’. In pre event testing here for the event, he said they were about to run a set of the Fugitive tyre for a total combined run time of around 2-hours.
Mixing it up with the European Championship establishment in Q5, 16-year-old Marco Baruffolo enjoyed a strong final qualifier taking his RB buggy to the 6th fastest time. Unfortunately the performance came too late for the 2013 Euro B Champion with him missing the Semi-final direct qualification cut by 4 places. The honour of top Italian instead goes to Kyosho’s 2013 National Champion Fabrizio Teghesi who secured the 16th and final position. Interestingly the 5 champions of the last 8 years have all directly qualified for the 20-minute Semi-Finals Ronnefalk and Batlle being joined by 2012 Champion Darren Bloomfield qualifying 5th, 3-time champion Renaud Savoya 6th and 2-time champion Yannic Aigoin 14th.
Overall Top 16 (direct Semi-Final Qualifiers)
1. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 522 pts
2. Robert Batlle – Mugen/Novarossi – 516
3. Teemu Leino – HB/Novarossi – 514
4. Elliott Boots – Kyosho/Reds Racing – 513
5. Darren Bloomfield – Agama/Bullitt – 512
6. Renaud Savoya – Xray/Orion – 506
7. Joseph Quagraine – JQ/Reds Racing – 502
8. Carsten Keller – Kysoho/Bullitt – 499
9. Martin Bayer – Xray/LRP – 497
10.Christoffer Svensson – Kyosho/OS Speed – 497
11.Joern Neumann – Team Durango/FX – 494
12.Lee Martin – Mugen/Beat – 490
13.Jerome Aigoin – Kyosho/Novarossi – 490
14.Yannick Aigoin – Associated/Ultimate – 490
15.Martin Wollanka – Xray/FX – 488
16.Fabrizio Teghesi – Kyosho/OS Speed – 487
Round 5 Qualifying Top 12
1. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 11/5:13.391
2. Joern Neumann – Team Durango/FX – 11/5:18.825
3. Elliott Boots – Kyosho/Reds Racing – 11/5:19.185
4. Darren Bloomfield – Agama/Bullitt – 11/5:19.985
5. Teemu Leino – HB/Novarossi – 11/5:21.578
6. Marco Baruffolo – RB/RB – 11/5:22.387
7. Robert Batlle – Mugen/Novarossi – 11/5:22.699
8. Miguel Matias – Xray/RB – 11/5:23.392
9. Martin Wollanka – Xray/FX – 11/5:23.521
10.Martin Bayer – Xray/LRP – 11/5:23.870
11.Christoffer Svensson – Kyosho/OS Speed – 11/24.681
12.Davide Ongaro – Mugen/Novarossi – 11/5:25.231
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