Ronnefalk fastest in 1st timed practice

Kyosho’s David Ronnefalk has topped the opening timed round of practice at the 1:8 Offroad European Championship in France, completing 8 laps of the unique chalk surface track 2.7-seconds faster than Associated’s Yannick Aigoin with Kyosho’s Elliot Boots completing the Top 3 a further 2.3 seconds adrift.  Defending Champion Darren Bloomfield took his TLR to the 6th fastest time over the 5-minute run which will count towards a reseeding of the heats for qualifying which gets underway tomorrow.

17-year-old Ronnefalk was very happy with his run describing it as ‘pretty clean’.  Suffering one rollover which cost him around 1-second, he said his main focus going into the run was to keep everything smooth and that approach paid off.  Having tried to double the hump section in the 2-minute warm-up, the talented Swede said for the run he took the approach of driving around the first hump and jumping the second as while it was about 2/10th slower, doing the double was risky and one mistake would negate any time gained. Happy with how his AKA Handlebar shod MP9 is working, he said the tyres seem to work better on their second run and so for this afternoon’s second timed practice he will run a brand new set to prepare them for qualifying along with running a different Orion engine so as to have it ready should he need one later in the event.

Running a Centro chassis from CML Racing on his nVision powered RC8, which positions the engine more forward making the buggy more forgiving, Aigoin said he drove very safe and while ‘a little slow’ he was ‘very consistent’ declaring his 2nd fastest time as a ‘good’.  Admitting that without making mistakes 4 to 5 drivers can beat his time, he said he needs to find 3-4/10th a lap joking that this is why he has ‘Adrien (Bertin) working on the car’.  The 2 time former champion said he can always drive better but said he prefers to think the car is not perfect and more time can be found in the set-up although he said the car feels really well balanced and easy to drive.  Running Procircuit Hot Dices tyres, the Frenchman will will try the new Road Runner tyre in the warm-up and depending on how it feels run it or go back to the Hot Dices for the actual run.

Boots appeared happier with his performance today saying a change of diff oils had given his Novarossi powered MP9 more forward drive.  Running Proline’s Ion tyre the World Championship Top Qualifier said that he is a lot more comfortable with the buggy now and for the next practice he just plans on trying to tidy up his driving.  It was a good start to the day for Kyosho with 3 of the Top 5 drivers running for Kyosho.  Setting the fourth fastest time French Champion Jerome Aigoin described his run as good adding that the ‘driver was much better today’.

Setting the 5th fastest time Kyosho’s Christoffer Svensson was ‘pretty happy’ with his run describing his OS powered MP9 as ‘great’.  Having taken the opposite approach to fellow countryman Ronnefalk, whom he said he has done a lot of testing with in preparation for this years Euros, by doubling the opposing hump section he said he had two mistakes there.  Feeling he can do better, he will adapt Ronnefalk’s line for the final practice along with making a small change to the rear linkage.

7.8 seconds off Ronnefalk’s time with the sixth fastest time, Bloomfield said after a ‘shaky few laps’ in the warm-up he has to do a bit of a reset when he came in for fuel to start the timed run going for consistency rather than speed.  Commenting that he never starts an event of ‘fast’ adding that Ronnefalk’s early pace was impressive, he said his Novarossi powered 8ight 3.0 was a little soft on the rear making it ‘squirmy on power’.  Planning to run a stiffer spring and go to a heavier oil in the centre diff he thinks this should cure the problem.  Unlike the majority of AKA drivers who are running the Handlebar, Bloomfield prefers the Wishbone but with a limited supply available he will run Handlebar in the next practice to save tyres for qualifying.

Sporting a ‘chequered flag’ hair style, which from some angles could very easily be mistaken for a football, Joesph Quagraine took his Yellow Edition of The Car to an impressive 7th fastest.  The Finn said the car is performing well and its his driving he needs to work on.  Able to do certain sections of the track well he said he is throwing away the time at other sections and his goal for the second practice is to try and string all the good sections together for a complete lap.  Running AKA Handlebar this morning he will try Hot Bodies Beam tyres in the second outing.

Setting the 9th fastest time behind Associated’s Neil Cragg, World Champion Robert Batlle was not overly pleased with his pace.  The Mugen driver, who is running the same tyre as Yannic Aigoin who posted the 2nd fastest time, said his MBX-7 has too much grip on the front and not enough in the rear adding that he thinks the problem is with the set-up rather than the tyres.  For Mugen team-mate Lee Martin it was also a disappointing run, the British driver saying the run was a combination of bad driving, traffic issues and a set-up that gave him ‘too much grip’.

Arch rival Renaud Savoya took his Xray to the 12th fastest time, almost 10 seconds off the current pace.  The 3-time former European Champion said having struggled for consistency yesterday they have now got this sorted but now the problem is that they are lacking speed.  With his Orion powered XB9 easy to drive he said ‘they are missing something’ but the plan for this afternoon is to change the set-up to try and get more mechanical grip from the chassis.

Round 1 Timed Practice Top 10
1. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 8/5:20.04
2. Yannick Aigoin – Associated/nVision – 8/5:22.74
3. Elliot Boots – Kyosho/Novarossi – 8/5:25.08
4. Jerome Aigoin – Kyosho/Novarossi – 8/5:25.73
5. Christoffer Svensson – Kyosho/OS – 8/5:26.10
6. Darren Bloomfield – TLR/Novarossi – 8/5:27.87
7. Joesph Quagraine – JQ/JQ – 8/5:28.08
8. Neil Gragg – Associated/LRP – 8/5/28.24
9. Robert Batlle – Mugen/Novarossi – 8/5:28.43
10.Romain Valter – Kyosho/Novarossi – 8/5:28.64

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