Ronnefalk TQs opening qualifier at eBuggy Worlds
Xray’s David Ronnefalk has TQ’d the opening round of qualifying at the inaugural IFMAR 1:8 Electric Offroad World Championship in Portugal. Winner of his fourth European 1:8 Nitro Buggy Championships title at the Barcelos track earlier this month, the Swede took the first of the six qualifiers from the similar car of Michal Orlowski, the Schumacher team driver only half a second off at the end of their respective 5-minute qualifying efforts. Having been missing from the radar over the previous 2-days of practice, qualifying would see Davide Ongaro turn up with a Top 3 run ahead of Top Seed Elliott Boots, the Sworkz driver having a late issue with traffic on his run. Boots’ team-mate Juan Carlos Canas opened his account with the fifth fastest time with Dakotah Phend continuing to be the top non-European as he steered his Xray to P6 ahead of Infinity’s young Japanese protege Kouki Kato.
Reacting to his TQ run, the reigning European 1:8 and 1:10 Offroad Champion running in Group 8 of 10, Ronnefalk said, ‘That was a good start and what you want from the first couple of runs of qualifying to have points that count for the overall early on so you have room for set-up changes or improvement towards the end. It give you a bit more margin and you can drive a little more relaxed towards the end of qualifying.’ The former European eBuggy Champion continued, ‘It is not normally my strongest part of the race, qualifying, but I think I have improved a little bit in the last month or so. The car and everything has been feeling really good so I just had to keep it on the wheels and step back a little bit to do that and luckily it was enough for TQ. They were not far behind but it worked out in the end.’ For Q2, he said, ‘we are keeping it the same, gluing up a new set of tyres, the same ones, and it should be good. I haven’t touched that much from the start of the race up until now and I don’t think I am going to have to either as the track is fairly consistent now that they put some concrete in the jump section. The landing after the quad is a little more grippy than before. The car balance felt like it was right where I wanted it now and I can just work on my driving.’
Orlowski wasn’t overly impressed with his own performance for the midday qualifier, saying, ‘It was OK, the car is really good, the whole balance, everything is good, but I drove better in the morning practice. Now I started off pretty OK had a slightly slower second lap and I had three really slow laps in a row without any major mistakes’. The Polish ace continued, ‘It was clean run but maybe I think a little too clean. I wasn’t pushing enough. I don’t want to push much but in the morning (practice) I did a lot better.’ For Q2 the reigning 1:12 World Champion said, ‘as the race goes on we are not making changes now, we are happy with where we are, I was just driving way too cautious this time round. I am sure I have the pace to top some rounds.’
A much happier looking Ongaro reacted to his P3 with, ‘Definitely way better, we found some speed finally. Now that the base set-up is good we need to find some little things that can help me more but I’m super happy.’ The Nitro Buggy World Champion continued, ‘I think my pace was the same as David (Ronnefalk) but I crashed on the warm up lap so I had to let everyone go and I was last so the last 4-laps I found like 5-cars in front of me so instead of crash and make some mistakes I stayed behind them and lost maybe one second or more.’ Planning to change the centre diff oil for Q2, asked what the big change was that brought him into contention today, the Team Associated driver explained, ‘When I built the car I put a thing on the car that was supposed to be the same but it was different and that thing changed the caster, camber, everything. So when I say ok this is different I put the original one on and the car from then started to work.’
Boots felt his run ‘could have been a bit better’. The British driver explained, ‘We just wanted to go for a steady run and start off on the right foot and got a fourth which is not terrible but I think we were on pace for TQ, there or thereabouts, but I had a problem with traffic. Pekko (Iivonen) crashed a pipe and bounced out and hit me, just one of those racing things. Without that I think it would have been Top 2.’ For the next round he will not change anything saying ‘the car felt good and I just need to try be a bit luckier with traffic and get called through. Hopefully I can get a clear space for most of the run which would be great.’
‘I don’t expect that was P5 when I came off the driver stand’, was Canas’ reaction after Q1. The Spaniard continued, ‘I feel that my driving is not really good so it would be slow but finally it was Top 5 and that’s good, it’s less work for the next one.’ On his buggy set-up he said, ‘this morning in practice I tried some things and it didn’t work so I went back and tried to make a safe run to get some points’. For Q2, based on the rising temperature, he will change tyres and ‘some little things’ on the car but he feels the biggest area for improvement will come from his own driving.
Summing up the first qualifier, Phend said, ‘It was a pretty clean first round, I had a couple of small bobbles and probably lost around a second, a second & a half, or so but good to have a first clean run in and a decent point but yeah I just need to find a little more speed for today,’ On the track, the ROAR National Champion said, ‘I think it has a little less grip than it did the last couple of days so I think everyone is going a little bit slower.’
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