Commanding performance sees Ronnefalk take Q2

David Ronnefalk put in a commanding performance in the second round of qualifying at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in Germany to top the times by an impressive 3-seconds over arch rival Robert Batlle. Having been hampered by a damp track for his opening qualifier, ending up 3rd fastest, the defending champion send a clear message of his intentions here at Sand am Main as he posted the first and only 27 second lap of the track.  Behind the two champions an impressive drive by JQ boss Joseph Quagraine gave him third for the round, the Finn just pipping fellow countryman & Q1 Top Qualifier Teemu Leino by 87/1000th.

Running everything the same as he did in Q1, only changing back to AKA’s Catapult tyre for the dry track, Ronnefalk said his Orion powered MP9 was ‘so easy to drive it, so it was very easy to push’.   Getting away with one mistake when he landed on the track border coming up the hill having over compensated for touching the opposite side a lap earlier he said the rest of the run was good.  Looking to Q3, which brings Day 2 of the 34th running of the Championships to a close, he said he was going to ‘just keep driving it’ his father & mechanic joking that the are almost afraid to change anything the buggy is performaning so well.

Batlle said they were able to find even more steering from his Novarossi powered Mugen and he declared himself happy with another second place run adding that other than some traffic the run was quite clean.  Describing his MBX7 as ‘consistent & easy to drive’, the Spaniard is already starting to focus his attentions to adjusting the car in preparation for the Semi Finals.

Ninth fastest in Q1, declaring afterwards that there was a lot more to come from the car which he designed himself, Quagraine was understandable pleased with his competitive run to 3rd.  The straight talking JQ Racing boss said his White Edition of ‘The Car’ has been really good all along and up to now the problems have ‘all been mental and nothing else’.  Describing Q1 as a ‘nervous’ drive he said he got it together for the second one and he hoped to be able to repeat it again now in Q3.  Running what he called a ‘standard set-up’ on his Red Racing powered buggy he said he will leave it the same and just choose the most suitable compound of AKA Impact tyre based on the weather conditions nearer the time of the run.

Leino was content with his fourth for the round describing it as ‘pretty good’.  Leaving his HB unchanged other than going to a harder compound Megabyte tyre, he said without a last lap incident with traffic it would have been very close between him and Batlle for second.  Leading his heat, on the last lap he twice got balked by the same backmarker resulting in the loss of almost 2 seconds.  He said the traffic here makes it hard to get a clean run but planning to leave everything the same for Q3 he said hopefully he can end the day with one more good result which would lock him into the Semi-Finals and give him the opportunity to use tomorrow’s Q4 & 5 to prepare for the finals.

Fifth fastest was Renaud Savoya.  The 3-time former Champion said from the first lap he knew it was going to be a difficult run.  The French ace said the main problem was he went for too soft a compound Sweep tyre but also having discussed set-up changes they played it too safe and opted against them when they would have suited the conditions.  With two solid runs he said this would allow them to go risky with the set-up for the next round. Behind Savoya, Kyosho driver Carsten Keller completed the Top 6.

Team Associated’s Yannick Aigoin claimed the 7th fastest time, the former Champion saying he was also on for a similar run in Q1 until he messed it up himself.  Catching a slower car he said in his own mistake he crashed into it result in him losing 5-seconds.  Describing his prototype RC8, similar to the one he raced at the World Championships in Argentina, as good in both runs, having left it unchanged, for Q3 he will run a different diff set-up to try and improve corner speed.  In terms of tyres having run Pro-Line’s X2 Diamond Backs, the compound being too hard, he will switch to LockDown feeling the new tyres extra side wall flex will be an advantage.

Round 2 Qualifying Top 12
1. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 11/5:14.193
2. Robert Batlle – Mugen/Novarossi – 11/5:17.130
3. Joseph Quagraine – JQ/Reds Racing – 11/5:19.521
4. Teemu Leino – HB/Novarossi – 11/5:19.608
5. Renaud Savoya – Xray/Orion – 11/5:21.596
6. Carsten Keller – Kysoho/Bullitt – 11/5:22.094
7. Yannick Aigoin – Associated/Ultimate – 11/5:22.172
8. Martin Bayer – Xray/LRP – 11/5:22.558
9. Dominic Bauer – Mugen/Alpha – 11/5:22.844
10.Fabrizio Teghesi – Kyosho/OS Speed – 11/5:22.886
11.Darren Bloomfield – Agama/Bullitt – 11/5:23.386
12.Davide Ongaro – Mugen/Novarossi – 11/5:23.834

View our event image gallery here.