Bayer tops Q3 in Austria

Having come close in the opening two rounds of qualifying, Team Xray’s Martin Bayer finally posted a TQ run taking his TLR22 to the fastest time in Q3 of 2WD Buggy at the TLR/Spektrum Euro Offroad Series in Austria.  Only his third ever 2WD Buggy race, the Czech driver was delighted to set the fastest time putting him in contention for the overall TQ honours with just one qualifier remaining.  Behind Bayer, Team C’s Oliver Scholz set the second fastest time becoming only the fifth driver in the 91 buggy field to do 14 laps of the indoor track. Once again Mister Consistent Hupo Honigl set the third fastest time in a round that would prove difficult for his Team Durango team-mate Joern Neumann.

Having topped the first two qualifiers, Neumann opted to switch from the handout dBoots front Nanobytes to the Blockpass tyre for Q3 having seen Bayer use them to good effect but the German said they were terrible.  Mounting them on a narrow rim, he said they made his DEX210 very aggressive leading him to rolling a number of times.   In the end the defending champion could only manage the 8th fastest time and so for the 4th & final qualifier he will revert back to the Nanobyte.

Peter Pinisch enjoyed his best qualifier taking his Associated Centro C4.1 to the 4th fastest time ahead of teenagers Dominic Bauer and Oskar Levin.  While Bayer set the pace his 1:8 Offroad rivals had another disappointing round.  Adding to his retirement from Q2, Kyosho’s David Ronnefalk said starting from the back he had some traffic issues but ultimately it was just a ‘bad round’ as he made too many mistakes himself.  The Swede would set the 26th fastest time, three places behind Renaud Savoya, and now with only one good result from Q1 he needs to get a clean Q4 if he is to book a place in the A-Main.  Robert Batlle again just missed out on a Top 10 run setting the 12th fastest time.

2WD Buggy Round 3 Qualifying Top 10
1. Martin Bayer (CZ) – Team Xray – 14/5:17.219
2. Oliver Scholz (DE) – Team C – 14/5:18.628
3. Hupo Honigl (AT) – Durango – 14/5:19.414
4. Peter Pinisch (AT) – Associated – 13/5:01.222
5. Dominic Bauer (AT) – TLR – 13/5:01.439
6. Oskar Levin (SE) – TLR – 13/5:02.160
7. Marcus Lubke (DE) – Team C – 13/5:02.723
8. Joern Neumann (DE) – Durango – 13/5:02.801
9. Rene Trauner (AT) – Yokomo – 13/5:03.862
10.Tom Maquel (LU) – Team C – 13/5:03.953

Complete event results can be found here.

View our event image gallery here.