August 1, 2017

Bloomfield fastest from Boots in FP3, Ronnefalk remains quickest

Darren Bloomfield was quickest in the latest round of practice at the European Championships in Sweden, the Agama driver topping the times for FP3 from reigning champion Elliott Boots.  While improving on his time from the opening practice, the British driver finding over 2-seconds, he couldn’t better David Ronnefalk’s pace from the second round which still stands as the fastest 3-consecutive laps of the Gröndal Ring track.  The first time we got an official time for Boots as he ran without a transponder in the first two, the Kyosho driver ran almost an identical time with a 2:01.630 compared to Bloomfield’s 2:01.613.  Behind the two Brits, Xray’s Yannick Aigoin would set the the fourth fastest time overall ahead of Robert Battle.  Portuguese driver João Figueiredo had a good FP3 run to complete the Top 6 with one round of free practice remaining that will bring Day 1’s proceedings to a close.

‘The car was a lot better’ was how Bloomfield summed up his latest run.  The 2012 Champion, continued, ‘we lowered the rear hinge pin height which made it more stable in the rear end.  That’s it really’.  Happy with his car he added, we could do with losing a bit of initial steering so we’ll look at that for the next one’.  Running on Beta’s V-Max tyre in the first three runs, he also plans to switch to their Freeride tyre saying, ‘its a bigger block tyre so it should pedal through the bumps better’.

On his FP3 run, Boots said, ‘I ran a new car that one having run an old car before but it felt different’. The Warm-up Race winner continued, ‘I’m not sure if its the track or the car but it did some strange things but other than that its got the pace’.  Asked if he would switch back to his old car, drivers having to tech which chassis they will race by the end of today, he said, ‘We’ll play around with the decision before we decide but we’ve got until the end of the day to make up our mind’. On track conditions Boots said, ‘its breaking up now that was catching me out in a few places’.

Summing up his run, his best three laps 5-seconds off his PF2 time, Ronnefalk said, ‘I changed to a harder compound tyre and it wasn’t good. The car was sliding and catching the ruts and I crashed a couple of times.  This left me in a bunch of cars and it not an easy track to run alongside other cars. I knew the tyre was wrong’. Running the O2 version of JConcepts new Kosmos tyre, he is considering trying two different tyre options in the final practice which is a 9-minute run compared the previous 5-minute rounds.  Also switching engines, trying a 3-port Orion compared to the 7-port he ran in the first two practices, he said, ‘it felt good but the driving style is a little different compared to the 7-port so I will give it another go in the last one’.

Having struggled with what direction to go with set-up in the morning, Aigoin said, ‘we went all the way back to our warm-up set-up’.  3rd fastest for FP3, the popular Frenchman continued, ‘we have nothing except this, so the work for 2-months at home was wasted’.  Happy with how the car is now running he said, ‘we can always improve but the pace is good and I’m getting old so being up the the kids is OK for me’.  With track conditions at the Warm-up ‘a lot bumpier’, he said, ‘the car is easy to drive so maybe it is better for now to make it more reactive.  We will change some small details so to have a little less rolling and a little more steering’.

‘Much better than before, we changed so many things’, was Batlle reaction after FP3.  The Mugen driver continued, ‘We tested so many things at home and put what we thought would work into our plan and we now have a good set-up.  From today it’s now just small details’.  Making the move from long time tyre sponsor Procircuit to AKA for the 2017, he switch to their Zipps tyre for the third round finding then an improvement but adding they would work better if the track was cleaner.  A driver notorious for playing the long game he concluded, ‘there is still a week to go’.

View our event image gallery here.



Usage

If you republish any elements from this page on another website, including text, original pictures or results please be sure to add a link back to this page as the source: