Champlin TQ’s final qualifier to secure P2 for WC Final
Schumacher’s Broc Champlin has TQ’d the final round of 2WD qualifying at the IFMAR 1:10 Offroad World Championship, the result promoting the American driver to second on the grid behind Top Qualifier Marcus Kaerup. With the running order for Round 5 of qualifier at the Hills RC Off Road track in Sydney starting with the fastest heat up first this morning, it was Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski who topped that but with the track improving as things warmed up, the following heats proved faster. Seeding in the second fastest heat Champlin set the top pace ahead of Xray’s David Ronnefalk and Team Associated’s Joona Haatanen, Ronnefalk’s first Top 10 run coming too late to put him in the title deciding A-Main. Orlowski’s time would end up being good enough for 4th ahead of team-mate & Q4 winner Daniel Kobbevik, improving the Polish driver’s quali tally but keeping him P5 on the grid. Having wrapped up the overall TQ after 3 rounds, Kaerup again used the final qualifier to test something on his Associated, the Dane saying afterwards that the changes ‘didn’t work’.
Describing his Q5 run as ‘super good’, Champlin continued, ‘I started off a little bit slow, I think I ran too fresh a tyres but I know what to do in the finals now.’ The 23-year-old, who unlike many of his rivals did not make any prior visits to the unique dirt track of this year’s World Championships, added, ‘The track came around a ton and I lost a lot of steering so I got a just tune a bit more steering into the car and I’m ready to fight. I start 2nd on the grid so it’s a good opportunity and I just have to be patient.’
In what has been a tough week for the entire Xray team, Ronnefalk said, ‘At least we can say we really tried. We worked our ass off. We didn’t get off to a good start on the practice day and we were trying everything between the team to find the issue, we were struggling with steering and grip and we have been trying and fighting the whole way through qualifying.’ The Swede continued, ‘I thought it was a little bit better in Q4 qualifying yesterday but unfortunately I had a crash, it could have been a Top 5 I think without that crash which maybe would have put me in the bottom of the A, so that kinda sucked but before we didn’t have a chance at it.’ The 2016 1:8 Buggy World Champion explained how they found some pace for this morning, ‘After the debrief yesterday we came up with a couple of last changes that we wanted to try to learn something for 4WD and it definitely worked so I think even though it really sucks in the B and not have any cars in the A we did everything we could this week and I am happy to be able to show at least one good run there to put the brand up were the should be.’ The former 1:10 Worlds podium finisher added, ‘When I was here testing everything was feeling good, the track is a lot different from then layout wise and grip wise, the car really required a little bit of a different set-up and it took us too long to find. On the changes he made the Swede said, ‘the base is still from when I was hear in July but the layout is a little faster, the grip is a little higher so basically little details throughout qualifying and finally now with two major changes it really improved the feeling, the grip, and the steering and everything. If I could have had this earlier of course it would have been a different story but its easy to say, I’m just happy like we were able to just prove to ourselves we were able to find it and just need to keep it with us for 4WD and hopefully we get off to a better start there.’
With his final run putting him into the A-Main after he took the tie break for the 10th & final spot with 4WD World Champion Davide Ongaro, asked about his qualifying, 22-year-old Haatanen said, ‘My car has been really good in qualifying but too easy to drive so the pace wasn’t that good. We made some changes for the last qualifying yesterday and drove the same car this morning and seems to be really good, but it was just too late.’ The newly crowned German National Champion continued, ‘In Q2 our car was pushing a little so we thought it was the front tyre so we just changed to new front tyres but it didn’t make a difference so I think we just lost one qualifying basically because we didn’t change the car enough to get more steering.’
‘The car was amazing but the track was just too slow, that’s it’, that was how Orlowski summed up his final qualifying effort. Runner-up behind Kaerup at the recent inaugural eBuggy Worlds in Portugal, he continued, ‘I had a mistake at the back and lost around a second and then the last few laps I was on 2-wheels and lost another second or something. I knew the B heat and the later heats would have track advantage so I knew I needed a 110% clean run and I didn’t so I knew it would not be enough.’ On his car he explained, ‘We made changes over night for the car. Me and Daniel did the same change and both of us were extremely strong and and crazy fast this one, it was just bad set-up decisions at the beginning of qualifying and then in Q4 and Q5 I had really good pace but I got taken out my Marcus in Q4 and now the slower track conditions. The starting position is not great cause I wil be start 5th but we have good pace so we need to hope for some luck but its not been the best.’
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