Mugen’s Robert Batlle is the 2011 European 1:8 Offroad Champion after a thrilling final that saw the Top 3 covered by little over 5-seconds after 45-minutes of intense racing at Sand-am-Main, Germany. Starting from pole Kyosho’s Jerome Aigoin finished runner-up with Daniel Reckward completing the podium at the 31st running of the championships.
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Jérôme Aigoin is safely through to the final after controlling the first of the Semi Finals from start to finish at the 1:8 Offroad European Champions. The Top Qualifier headed a Kyosho 1-2 in the 20-minute encounter taking the win by 5.4 seconds over Swedish teenager David Ronnefalk and will start on pole for the main event in Sand-am-Main, Germany. The winner of the second Semi over Daniel Reckward, TLR’s Martin Bayer will start from second on the grid.
There was drama at the start of both Semis as former Champion Miguel Matias flamed out just as the car when to grid in the first race and pole sitter from the second Marcel Guske suffered a similar faith. The mechanics of both drivers made a dash back to the pits to get their drivers running again incurring penalties. In the case of JQ driver Matias, who was starting from last on the grid, his pitman ran down the main straight earning the Portuguese driver a 10 second penalty that would be added to his final race time. This was to cause some controversy as Matias who recovered to sixth made it to the line just before the 20-minutes expired. Unfortunately for Team Xray’s Teemu Leino, who was within 10 seconds of Matias, he did get to the line before the 20 minutes making the penalty ineffective. In the case of the find of these championships, Guske was called in to serve a Stop & Go penalty. A lap down due to the flame out, the 22-year-old Euros debutant made it back up to fifth after passing Elliot Boots on the final run to the finish and will start the 45-minute final from 10th.
There was cruel luck for the British Champion Darren Bloomfield who suffered two engine flame outs while holding a bump up position in the opening Semi just after the halfway point. Setting the fastest lap of the two Semis, the British Champion who qualified 3rd finished 10th two and a half laps down. Pre-event favourite Robert Batlle lines up 6th on the grid after a messy race to fourth in his Semi.
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European Champion for the last three years, Renaud Savoya’s quest to lift a fourth consecutive title is over after the French ace suffered a broken steering servo horn in the 1/4 final while running in a bump up position. Starting from fourth on the grid for the 20-minute encounter, Savoya looked on target to progress to the Semi but as the race came up on mid distances his buggy lost steering ending his long reign as Europe’s top buggy racer.
Having bumped up from the 1/8 final, the race was eventually won by Durango team-mate Joern Neumann from 2008 Finalist Borja Hernandez and Riccardo Rabitti who made the final in Austria in 2009. Securing the final bump position of the 1/4 B finals was Austrian Team Agama driver Martin Karner.
In the 1/4 A final last year’s third spot podium finisher Miguel Matias, who also bumped up from his 1/8 Final, took the win with hs JQ buggy ahead of former finalists Hupo Honigl and Riccardo Perin. After a great battle with Daniel Vega, Joseph Quagraine snatched fourth spot from the Spaniard on the last lap to claim his third bump up of the day having started out in the 1/16 Final.
Three of last year’s finalists who will play not further part are Tamiya’s Lee Martin who pulled up after 15-minutes in his 1/4 Final with a servo problem and Serpent duo Rodrigo Luis and Alberto Garcia who failed to progress from the respective 1/4 and 1/16 Finals.
Semi A line-up
1. Jérôme Aigoin (FR)
2. Darren Bloomfield (UK)
3. Robert Batlle (ESP)
4. David Ronnefalk (SWE)
5. Teemu Leino (FIN)
6. Yannick Aigoin (FR)
7. Carsten Keller (D)
8. Neil Cragg (UK)
9. Miguel Matias (PT)
10.Hupo Honigl (A)
11.Riccardo Perin (IT)
12.Joseph Quagraine (FIN)
Semi B line-up
1. Marcel Guske (D)
2. Daniel Reckward (D)
3. Simon Willetts (UK)
4. Elliot Boots (UK)
5. Martin Bayer (CZ)
6. Jérôme Sartel (FR)
7. Ignacio Candel (ESP)
8. Carlos Durães (PT)
9.Joern Neumann (D)
10.Borja Hernandez (ESP)
11.Riccardo Rabitti (IT)
12.Martin Karner (A)
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For the second year in a row the honour of being Top Qualifier at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships has gone to an Aigoin with Jérôme pulling off the feat achieved by his twin brother Yannick in Portugal last year. Only TLR’s Darren Bloomfield and Mugen’s Simon Willetts could deny Aigoin from being Top Qualifier needing to top the fifth & final round of qualifying to do so but it was the surprise of these championship Marcel Guske who took Q5.
Aigion was delighted at claiming his first TQ at the Euros but said he is taking nothing for granted for tomorrow’s finals. The quietly spoken Frenchman expects a tough Semi final saying a lot of drivers showed good speed in the final round of qualifying and he wants to focus on getting past this stage before starting to think of his chances for the 45-minute Main final.
Impressing a lot of onlookers with his pace, little known German racer Guske admitted he was surprised himself at his performance at Sand-am-Main. A podium finisher at last year’s German Nationals, this is the 22-year-old’s first European Championships and he says he never expected to qualify second overall and find himself on pole for a Semi final. Asked what approach he would be taking for the finals Guske said he would ‘just see how it goes’ but with his RB tyres equipped MBX-6 already proving it has the speed he was going to ‘give his best’.
Finishing third overall Bloomfield was on target to record the first 11 lap qualifier but on his penultimate lap he messed up loosing almost 7-seconds. Shrugging off the incident the top TLR driver said after qualifying that his 8ight was the best it has been and liking the bumpy track he has no doubts about tomorrow saying he is going to win his Semi.
Another driver to be on target for 11 laps in Q5 until he made a mistake on his final lap, Daniel Reckward qualifies 4th. A three time winner of the European Championship and a former World Champion, the German said his Mugen which is identical to that of Guske had great speed while also being quite safe to drive. Opting to try RB’s Scorpion tyre in the final qualifier while Guske stuck with the Dragon pattern Reckward said he felt the former offered slightly better traction. A mentor to Guske since he joined the Mugen/RB team two years ago, Reckward said it was fantastic to see his driver do so well and he feels they both have the potential to do well tomorrow.
Despite not yet living up to the pre-event hype that he would be the man to beat around the Sand-am-Main track, Warm-up race winner Robert Batlle appeared a lot happier at the end of qualifying. Struggling yesterday, the Mugen ace qualifies 5th overall but having found a set-up that was more to his liking today he is now pretty confident of having a good Semi.
Setting himself the target of qualifying in the Top 10, Willetts said he was ‘well happy’ with sixth. Taking the top spot in the opening qualifier The British driver said he drove too conservatively today but says he has the equipment to progress from the Semi to his first ever Main final.
Current European Junior Champion David Ronnefalk matched his 2010 qualifying result by taking 7th. After bad results in his opening two heats the 15-year-old said the end result was ‘good enough’. Admitting to making too many ‘stupid’ mistakes the talented Swede said his Orion powered Kyosho is good enough to be competitive in the final and he just needs to cut out the mistakes and drive it.
Claiming his best run in the final round of heats with the fifth fastest time, Elliot Boots is the highest placed Durango driver in the Semis having qualified his RB powered DNX408 in eighth, the position in which he finished the Euros final last year.
Third fastest in Q3, Team Xray’s Teemu Leino ended his qualifying on a high as he claimed second in Q5 after pulling off his first error free run. The Finn qualifies 9th overall and says his buggy is working well but thinks the biggest concern for tomorrow is going to be the weather.
For last year’s Top Qualifier Yannick Aigoin it has been a tough few days. The former champion said they have made a lot of changes to the set-up on his nVision power TLR 8ight but they haven’t been able to get it right for the track conditions. Qualifying 11th behind his team-mate Martin Bayer he said he hopes tomorrow things will get better. Completing the Top 16, Jérôme Sartel, Carsten Keller, Ignacio Candel, Neil Cragg and Carlos Keller secure themselves a direct starting spot in the all important Semi Finals.
Chasing a fourth consecutive European title Renaud Savoya will have to start his defence from the 1/4 Finals, his lowest qualifying position since he made his Euros debut in 2005. Incidentally that race was also held in German and he also started in the 1/4 Finals. The Durango/RB driver said they got the buggy easier and easier to drive each heat but in the end it was too slow. Going back to the set-up they started out with on Tuesday he said it should have the speed to progress up the finals and its up to him to keep it on four wheels.
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Team Losi Racing’s Darren Bloomfield has TQ’d the penultimate round of qualifying at the EFRA 1:8 Offroad Championship setting a new overall fastest time for the Sand-am-Main track. In the last group to run their fourth qualifier, the Warm-up race runner-up denied Mugen a 1-2-3 result by running a 10/5:01.309 pace ahead of Daniel Reckward, Marscel Guske and Q1 pace setter Simon Willetts.
Not lacking in self confidence, Bloomfield said the 5-minute run was the best he had driven all week and he always knew he had the speed to pull off a TQ run. Feeling the track is coming more and more to him, the result moves the 22-year-old to second in the qualification ranking behind Jérôme Aigoin. Running AKA Grid Iron on his Nitrotec powered TLR 8ight, the British Champion said he might try iBeam in the final qualifier to help the buggy go through the bumps better but other than that the plan is to just ‘go for it again’.
Reckward was delighted with both his and his Mugen/RB team-mate Guske’s performance. Switching to the same diff set-up as used by Guske to take second in Q3 yesterday, Reckward said his MBX-6 was ‘fantastic’ with the switch to heavier oils making the buggy more stable over the stones. Setting the fastest lap of the round, Guske had the potential for a TQ run but lost 4-seconds with a mistake on lap 3. Running RB’s new tyres Reckward said they may use the fifth & final round to test for the first time the French company’s Mini Pin pattern.
Topping the difficult conditions of the opening round of qualifying, Willetts was happy with his run to fourth in Q4. The Brit, said a mistake at the Double up the hill, which forced him to take it single/single, lost him some time as did traffic near the end of the run. Running the same set-up on his Orion powered MBX-6 as yesterday he said the Double is becoming ‘make or break’ as you must be on the right line out of the previous corner up to hill to have enough track to clear the double.
A finalist in Portugal last year driving for Xray, Jerome Sartel took his Agama to the fifth fastest time. The French driver said his Bullitt powered Evo A8 has been good throughout qualifying but this was the first time he was able to pull together a mistake free run. Running VP-Pro Axman tyres, changing only the compound to suit the conditions at the time of each run, he said he has had to do little with his set-up and the focus is now on keeping his driving clean.
Fastest of the Team Durango drivers, Elliott Boots was on a very fast run until Jérôme Aigoin made a mistake in which he got caught up in. Costing him about 2.5 seconds, the 17-year-old eventually took sixth but his team where happy with his driving and feel they have a very good ‘finals’ car. One of the stars of this year’s European B Championships, young German Mugen driver Dominic Bauer enjoyed his best run, a change to Proline Hole Shot tyres giving him the traction he was missing in the earlier qualifiers.
Topping Q2 & 3, Aigoin had a ‘difficult’ fourth round. Admitting to being a little stressed he said his Kyosho was great in the warm-up but once the timing started he just made too many mistake all of which were his own doing. 17th fastest it was to be his worst round.
Round 4 Qualifying – Top 12
1. Darren Bloomfield – TLR/Nitrotec – 10/5:01.309
2. Daniel Reckward – Mugen/RB – 10/5:04.142
3. Marcel Guske – Mugen/RB – 10/5:05.157
4. Simon Willetts – Mugen/Orion – 10/5:05.924
5. Jérôme Sartel – Agama/Bullitt – 10/5:06.115
6. Elliot Boots – Durango/RB – 10/5:06.130
7. Dominic Bauer – Mugen/Novarossi – 10/5:06.567
8. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Orion – 10/5:07.604
9. Neil Cragg – Associated/LRP – 10/5:08.035
10.Lee Martin – Tamiya/OS – 10/5:08.736
11.Jörn Neumann – Durango/Picco – 10/5:08.762
12.Carlos Duraes – Xray/RB – 10/5:09.355
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