Euro Qualifying starts with TLR 1-2

Team Losi Racing, who despite being one of the main players in the 1:8 Offroad market have never before won the European Championship, got their 2012 campaign off to a strong start this morning in Austria as their drivers Darren Bloomfield and Miguel Matias topped the time sheets for the opening round of qualifying ahead of Mugen’s defending Champion Robert Batlle.

Bloomfield said after his TQ run that ‘it didn’t feel like a 9-lap run’ but he managed to ‘drive an error free 5-minutes’.  Running a scrubbed set of super soft AKA Enduros on his 8ight, which features a number of new parts the team have brought over from the US to test, the British ace said the buggy felt very good.  Having changed to a different Novarossi engine for qualifying, Bloomfield was happier with the tuning having struggled to get a good balance between the top & bottom end on the engine he ran in yesterday’s two timed practice rounds.

Former Champion Matias said his updated 8ight was awesome although he is still looking for a little more steering.  Unlike the majority of drivers running AKA who choose Enduro for Q1, the Portuguese ace ran super soft compound Impact tyres something he said was just down to a personal preference.  Planning to stick with the same set-up and tyres for Q2, for which he has an almost 6 hour wait before his heat is up, Matias said he will modify his rear wing so as to reduce drag and also help with getting better rotation in the corners.

Batlle, who essentially ran two qualifiers this morning following a problem with the timing computer, said his Mugen lacked steering but he was still able to run consistent laps and he was happy enough to set a 9-lap run.  Running soft compound Pro Circuit Square Impact the 2-time Champion said the extra running meant his tyres started to fade at the end of the run.  The problem with the timing occurred as officials input the disqualification of Associated Neil Cragg, whose fuel tank failed for being deem over size, in to the timing causing the automated voice to make random announcements such as 30 seconds to start when the race was already 2-minutes underway.  Restarting the run the problem went away and race director Carlos Gomez is confident the issue is now rectified.

Also running in the restarted heat Kyosho team driver Christoffer Svensson took his OS powered MP9 to the fourth fastest time ahead of team-mate & yesterday’s controlled practice pace setter Jerome Aigoin.  The Swede described the run as ‘just alright’ as while he made no mistakes he did not always hit his lines. Running AKA Enduro tyres he said the plan for Q2 is to just focus on improving his driving.  Fellow Swede and Kyosho team-mate David Ronnefalk set the fastest lap of Q1 with a 36.571 and was on target for a TQ run when he ran wide and out into to the dust causing his to lose traction for the table top off which he crashed his Orion powered MP9 and lost a massive 9 seconds to end up 11th.

Running a new AKA ‘similar to Grid Iron’ tyre in his first qualifier Jerome Aigoin summed up his run as ‘Not so bad, not so fast’.  With one mistake that lost him almost 3 seconds, last year’s Top Qualifier and pole sitter said he will most likely switch to Enduro tyres for Q2 but for now everything else he will leave the same.

Team Durango’s Jörn Neumann, who won the 4WD electric European Championship at this track last month, was pleased with his opening qualifier as he posted the 6th fastest time.  Using a bigger pin tyre having switched from JConcepts Stackers to a Crossbows he said he had better overall grip and steering particularly on the concrete block section of the track.   Running a prototype car most of which has been hand machined by Durango designer Gerd Strenge the German ace said the new buggy is a huge improvement over last year’s.  While he made the final 12-months ago Neumann said this year the buggy, which follows a more traditional chassis design, is a far more competitive package.

The Top seed for qualifying Elliot Boots saw any chance of a TQ run end at the very start of the run when he got the first corner wrong and launched his Kyosho off the track.  Loosing 4 seconds he said the rest of the run was good and the car had the pace to TQ but the lost time meant he got 7th for the round ahead of ‘The Car’ of Joseph Quagraine and the LRP of Borja Hernandez.

Completing the Top 10 was 3-time Champion Renaud Savoya.  The Xray driver said he went into the opening heat looking to put in a clean run but drove a little too cautiously in particular his opening lap which was 38.658 seconds.  Running Sweep Double Action tyres, the French ace said his RB powered XB9 felt good and he just needs to push harder next time out.

Qualifying Times Round 1
1. Darren Bloomfield (GB) – TLR/Novarossi – 9/5:35.967
2. Miguel Matias (PT) – TLR/RB – 9/5:36.453
3. Robert Batlle (ES) – Mugen/Novarossi – 9/5:38.132
4. Christoffer Svensson (SE) – Kyosho/OS – 8/5:00.352
5. Jérôme Aigoin (FR) – Kyosho/Mugen – 8/5:01.445
6. Jörn Neumann    (DE) – Durango/Picco – 8/5:02.031
7. Elliot Boots    (GB) – Kyosho/Novarossi – 8/5:02.199
8. Joseph Quagraine (FI) – JQ/JQ – 8/5:02.483
9. Borja Hernandez (ES) – LRP/Alpha – 8/5:02.892
10.Renaud Savoya (FR) – Xray/RB – 8/5:02.966
11.David Ronnefalk (SE) – Kyosho/Orion – 8/5:03.636
12.Davide Tortorici (IT) – Mugen/Bliss – 8/5:04.558

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