April 12, 2013

Perfect first day for Neumann at EOS finale

Joern Neumann

Having opened Day 1 of the ‘TLR/Spektrum Euro Offroad Series presented by Horizon Hobby’ with a TQ run in 2WD Buggy reigning champion Joern Neumann completed the perfect day in Dortmund, Germany, when he repeated the feat to head a Team Durango 1,2,3 in Q1 of 4WD qualifying at the season finale.  Behind Neumann, Hupo Honigl and Oliver Speith it was Martin Bayer who was the fastest non Team Durango driver taking his factory Xray to the fourth fastest time.  For World Champion Ryan Cavalieri a set-up change after a strong showing in time practice, in which he set the 6th fastest time, made his Associated difficult to drive and rolling through the crossover, where his buggy took some time to be recovered, the American decided to pull up and save his tyres.

Neumann

Undefeated in 4WD buggy since the creation of the EOS, European Champion Neumann was pleased with his run but said his DEX410 felt a little edgy something he was putting down to running the first qualifying on a brand new set of the controlled dBoots tyres.  Team-mate Honigl was ‘very happy’ with both his own driving and his buggy saying it was ‘really good’ to be so close on pace to Neumann and to have a ‘huge gap’ over the rest of the field.  Third fastest, 7.6-seconds off Honigl, 17-year-old Speith was clearly delighted and a little surprised with his performance.  Running the same set-up as he did on his last EOS appearance at Round 2 in Langenfeld, where he made the A-Main he said his car felt really good and he wasn’t planning anything for Q2.

Bayer

Third fastest in timed practice, Bayer’s qualifying got off to the bad start as he made a mistake on the opening lap which cost him over 2 seconds.  Runner-up to Neumann at Round 3 in Austria, the Czech ace said after the mistake he just tried to focus on completing the rest of the run error free, an approach that paid off with fourth.  Happy with the result he said in terms of his XB4 set-up they still had work to do as the buggy was ‘difficult to drive’.  Team-mate Renaud Savoya took his example to the 7th fastest time behind his great 1:8 Offroad rival Robert Batlle.  Also describing his buggy as ‘hard to drive’, the Frenchman who came very close to TQing on his series debut in Austria last month said he ‘think(s) he has the speed’ but an incident on the last lap cost him 4-seconds and a potential Top 3 finish.

Robert Batlle

For Batlle who was on target for the 3rd fastest time, the coming together with Savoya on the last lap dropped the Yokomo driver back to 6th.  Having got updates for his B-Max 4 since making his international EP offroad debut at the EOS last month, the 1:8 World Champion said the buggy is much better.  Running a carbon plate chassis insert he said the buggy is much stiffer and he is confident the pace is there to qualify strong for the A-Main.

Orlowski

Backing up his run to the 4th fastest time in Q1 of 2WD, 11-year-old Michal Orlowski took his 4WD Durango to the 5th fastest time setting the fastest lap of the round in the process with a time of 15.519.  Another young Durango driver to make the Top 10 was Czech driver Kaja Novotny who set the 8th fastest time ahead of Kyosho team driver Christopher Krapp.  Krapp’s team-mate and Kyosho offroad ace David Ronnefalk ended the first qualifier only 17th fastest.  The Swede who finished in the 4WD podium on his EOS debut in Leoben, said his Lazer ZX5 has the speed but he just needs to cut out the ‘many’ mistakes.

4WD Buggy Qualification Round 1
1. Joern Neumann – Team Durango – 19/5:04.212
2. Hupo Honigl – Team Durango – 19/5:05.836
3. Oliver Speith – Team Durango – 19/5:13.437
4. Martin Bayer – Xray – 19/5:14.118
5. Michal Orlowski – Team Durango – 19/5:14.956
6. Robert Batlle – Yokomo – 19/5:15.183
7. Renaud Savoya – Xray –  19/5:17.508
8. Kaja Novotny – Team Durango – 18/5:00.616
9. Christopher Krapp – Kyosho – 18/5:00.884
10.Markus Metsch – Team Durango – 18/5:02.157

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