Batlle tops first seeding practice

Robert Batlle set the pace in the opening round of seeding practice at the 1:8 Offroad European Championships in Germany, the Mugen driver fastest over 5-minutes from the Kyosho of defending Champion David Ronnefalk.  Winning his second European title the last time the championships visited the Sand am Main track, the Spaniard would outpace his Swedish rival by 2.644 seconds with Team Xray’s Martin Bayer completing the Top 3 a further 1.704 off.

Despite topping the first of the two scheduled seeding rounds Batlle described the run as ‘not super good’.  Elaborating, the World Champion said they ‘still need more speed to win’.  Happy with the consistency of his Novarossi powered MBX7 describing the overall package as ‘not bad’ he feels he that it could do with more corner speed.  Running Procircuit’s medium compound Hot Dice tyre he will switch to the small pin Square Impact for the second practice feeling this should contribute to finding some of the extra speed he is looking for. Still to discuss his options with his team he is also pretty sure they will also have to make a set-up change to go with the change of tyre.

Ronnefalk described the performance of his Orion powered MP9 as good but said he had ‘bad luck’ with traffic. While he said he could do nothing about the traffic on the small track he felt in total it ended up costing him around 6 seconds.  Having been frustrated when his final practice run yesterday lasted just one-lap because of the arrival of rain, the 18-year-old said the shock change they had planned to test then turned out to be really good adding that his car felt ‘pretty much dialled in’, helped by today’s improved traction.  Running AKA’s soft compound Catapult tyre he plans to leave everything the same for the final seeding practice adding the hopes for better luck with getting through the traffic.

A ‘Pretty sweet run’ was how Martin Bayer summarised his performance, the Czech driver running a number of heats earlier than his rivals.  Last year’s podium finisher said while his LRP powered XB8 had a little less speed than yesterday ‘I’m there and not to far off the top guys so I’m happy’.  Feeling he needs to find a little more steering out of the corners which he is confident he can rectify for the second run he added overall he has a good feeling with the car and engine which are very stable so he can’t really complain.  Running AKA’s Catapult he will stick with his tyre choice.

Xray team-mate Renaud Savoya would end up 15 fastest.  The 3-time former champion, whose reign came to an end here in 2011, would lose 4 seconds after putting his Orion powered XB8 on its roof.  The French driver said the car was lazy and the crash was due to having to push too hard to make up time.  Like Bayer, he said the buggy needs more steering something that should be sorted with a caster change.  Having run hub weights he said he will probably run without these for the next outing as he needs to make more reactive.  Using Sweep’s Micro Contact tyre he is set to continue with them for now.

Making the switch to Pro-Line’s new LockDown tyre 19-year-old Dominic Bauer posted the 4th fastest time. Describing his run as ‘not bad’, he said while the tyres made his Alpha powered Mugen feel slower to drive it had more forward traction and was ultimately faster.  Using X2 compound, the Austrian said the tyres took a few minutes to come in and so for the second practice he will fit a brand new set using the track time to scrub them in for qualifying giving him a second set to work with tomorrow.

Having set the pace in yesterday’s opening day of practice, Darren Bloomfield would post the 5th fastest time as he struggled through the run with traffic.  The factory Agama driver said almost every lap he had to avoid unturned buggies as he came up the hill so it was nearly impossible to run a clean lap.  Asked how his Bullitt powered A8 felt, he said because of the traffic it was hard to tell but he ‘think(s) it felt good’.  Running a used set of Beta’s Freeride tyre, in medium-soft compound, he will fit a brand new set of the same tyre for the next run opting to leave the buggy set-up as is.

Behind the current British National Championship points leader was another UK driver, up & coming talent Jack Embling.  The protege of Lee Martin, the factory Mugen driver posting the 14th fastest time, Embling described his run to the sixth fastest time as ‘a little bit scrappy’.  The 17-year-old said his Beat powered Mugen had a lot of rotation which made it tricky to drive if he got out on the dust.  Running Pro-Line X3 Blockade tyres he said these were a little edgy and he will switch now to X2 compound.  In terms of set-up he will leave his MBX-7 unchanged having tried underdrive in yesterday’s final practice but finding he had better traction today without it.

Seventh fastest would be Kyosho Germany team driver Carsten Keller. The 25-year-old said his Bullitt powered MP9 ‘was a little difficult to drive but the speed was there’.  Suffering a mistake that cost him almost 3-seconds he said he went with too soft a tyre choosing AKA’s Super Soft Catapult. Planning to leave his set-up untouched and wait for the traction to come up he will switch to Soft compound Catapults for the last seeding practice.

Top Qualifier here in 2011, Jerome Aigoin would set the 8th fastest time. The current French National Champion said his Kyosho was good but the driver made a lot of small mistakes. Pleased with his MP9 set-up he joked unless he gets a light bulb moment he will run the MP9 the same but most probably he will try a different tyre to compare it to the AKA’s Enduro Soft he just ran.

Former European B Champion Ricardo Monteiro and two time Champion Yannick Aigoin completed the Top 10. Monteiro said his RB powered TLR was good but the driver needs work as he felt he nerves of the the first time run affected his performance.  Having run AKA’s Catapult tyres in open practice, the 21-year-old switched to Impact which he felt made his 8ight 3.0 feel less loose.  For his next run the Portugese driver plans to run everything the same and focus on getting any improvement in pace from himself.

Having missed yesterday’s practice due to being in hospital with a lip infection, we are glad top report newly crowned double 1:10 offroad European Champion Joern Neumann has been released and is at the track. Unfortunately needing all the track time he can as he tries to catch up with his rivals, the first seeding practice didn’t go exactly to plan for the Team Durango driver. On his second lap the battery plug discounted losing the German two valuable laps of the track. Once up and running again he said his FX powered buggy ‘felt ok’. Running Pro-Line’s yet to be released Fugitive tyre in X3 compound he feels a harder tyre would have been better and he will switch to a Suburb X2 with his main focus being on working on fine tuning his driving to the track of which he has so far only done a total of 11-timed laps.

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‘From Race Control’ – Day 2, Seeding Practice

After an inclement start to the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships Day 2 is off to a much brighter start with early flog clearing to reveal blue skies with the sun now shinning over the Sand am Main track. Drivers will take to the track a total of four times today but it is really only two of the runs that will count for anything of significance. Starting off with a 2-minute track sweeping round of practice, the second and third rounds will be of 10-minute duration with the final 5-minutes of these counting towards the seeding of the heats for qualifying which gets underway tomorrow. After the official opening ceremony of the championships, today’s action will end with another 2-minute practice in which the drivers will run in the seeded heat groups.

Rain affects Day 1 final practice at 1:8 Euros

After a damp start to Day 1 of the 34th running of the 1:8 Offroad European Championships, the inclement weather would affect the days final round of practice arriving just as some of the title favourites took to the track for last and extended practice round at the German event.  With Darren Bloomfield having just posted the fastest time for the 9-minute run in Group 8 of 15, as group 9 headed by defending champion David Ronnefalk took to the track the rain which had been dodged all day arrived leaving the Kyosho driver to pull up after just one full lap. With the track wet no one from Group 10, which included Mugen team-mates Robert Batlle and Lee Martin, would take to the track.  Also setting the fastest lap of the round albeit 2/10ths slower than his fastest lap of P3, the closest on pace to Bloomfield’s Agama was Xray’s Martin Bayer who was only 13/1000ths off.

Running 17 laps over the 9-minutes, missing out on 18 by just 8/10ths of a second, Bloomfield was pleased with his pace having left his A8 unchanged from P3 admitting he got lucky to get the run in just before the rain.

Having made a number of changes to his Kyosho MP9 for the final practice Ronnefalk was frustrated at losing the track time but said there was little point in continuing in the wet.  Although the threat of rain is likely to be an ongoing factor throughout the week here in Germany, Batlle also felt there was little to be gained from taking to the track.

Running in Group 6, using the run to evaluate tyres, Bayer was said he was ‘happy’ with his first day of the championships.  Having only adjusted the roll bars on his LRP powered XB8 over the day he ended up on soft compound AKA Catapult tyres which he said worked ‘really good’.  Looking to tomorrow last year’s podium finisher said he will wait to see what the weather does overnight and see how the track looks in the morning before deciding on a plan of action for the day. Day 2’s schedule will see drivers get four rounds of practice starting with a very short untimed 2-minute run before getting down to the more serious business of two 10-minute seeding rounds of the which the last five minutes will determine the order of the qualifying heats.

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