Rabitti takes Q4, Bloomfield Top Qualifier at Arena

TLR completed a clean sweep of buggy qualifying this morning with Riccardo Rabitti taking the fourth and final round of heats ahead of team-mates Darren Bloomfield, who set the pace in Q2 & 3, and Yannick Aigoin who TQ’d yesterday’s opening qualifier. Overall Bloomfield secures his second honour of being the Top Qualifier having dominated yesterday’s Brushless Buggy action.

Italian National Champion Rabitti, who set the fastest lap of qualifying in Q3 and was on a TQ run before losing 4-seconds with a mistake at the final corner of the last lap, ran his Picco powered 8ight exactly the same as last night focusing instead on driving an error free run and the approach paid off. The only member of the team running the prototype radio tray set-up that features the throttle servo moved to the front of the chassis, he said after this morning’s run he is feeling very confident for this evenings ‘Race of Champions’. Together with engine guru Alberto Picco, Rabitti has been working hard on maximising his run time and believes 11-minute stops are on the cards for tomorrow finals.

Bloomfield reported better grip levels over yesterday but trouble with traffic resulted in an error on lap 3 which cost him 3 seconds. Switching from Losi Kingpin to Blockhead tyres for the final round, the British Champion said he should have stuck with the Kingpin as these would have suit this morning’s condition better. Overall happy with his Nitrotec powered 8ight, Bloomfield will run the buggy as is in tonight’s stand alone ‘Race of Champions’ event saying it was far too early to predict how track conditions will be for tomorrow’s finals.

Completing a clean sweep of Truggy qualifying this morning with his fourth TQ run, reigning champion Aigoin said he was a little slow in the final buggy qualifier. Struggling a little with understeer in his nVision powered 8ight he said it was very hard to go fast and he will use the ‘Race of Champions’ to try a number of set-up changes in preparation for his title defence tomorrow.

Fourth fastest in Q4 and the best placed non TLR driver in the final qualification ranking Elliott Boots said his time was better than he thought. The talented British driver, who is out of a chassis contract and running a borrowed Kyosho MP9 here this weekend, said the track felt really slow and lost time with a couple of spins. Looking to improve the back end of the buggy, the RB team driver will, like Aigoin, use the Race of Champion to try some set-up ideas he has discussed with the buggy owner Mick Cradock.

Enjoying his best run of qualifying with the fifth fastest time in Q4, Italian TLR driver Alex Zanchettin completes the overall Top 6 splitting the Mugens of team drivers Simon Willets and Julien Lattanzio.

In the F2 Buggy class, who ran two qualifiers this morning, British driver Ashlee Owen got the better of his Hobao team-mate & defending champion Jon Howells to secure the overall TQ honours.  The 19-year-old backed up his Q1 run by setting the pace in Q3 while Q4 went to Austrian Durango driver Gerd ‘RTR’ Pfeifer.

Overall Buggy Qualification – Top 16
1. Darren Bloomfield – TLR/Nitrotec – 400 pts
2. Yannick Aigoin – TLR/nVision – 398
3. Riccardo Rabitti – TLR/Picco – 397
4. Elliot Boots – Kyosho/RB – 394
5. Simon Willets – Mugen/Orion – 392
6. Alex Zanchettin – TLR/BP – 389
7. Julien Lattanzio – Mugen/Ninja – 388
8. Valerio Bellano – Xray/RB – 385
9. Federico Bellano – Crono/OS – 385
10.Eghlis Gallo – Mugen/OS – 385
11.Davide Rabitti – TLR/Picco – 383
12.Daniele Chicca – JQ/Precirotate – 381
13.Stefano Cantoni – Kyosho/Orion – 381
14.Alessandro Stocco – Hot Bodies/Alpha – 380
15.Riccardo Perin – Agama/Novarossi – 379
16.Andrea Giorgetti – Mugen/Novarossi – 377

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