Martin tops opening 4WD qualifier in Slovakia

Title protagonist Lee Martin has taken the opening round of 4WD qualifying at the Euro Offroad Series season finale in Slovakia.  Chasing the championship double, the 2WD Champion topped the times from last year’s Hudy Racing Arena winner Martin Bayer and qualifying top seed Naoto Matsukura.  With Martin himself somewhat surprised by the result, it was a significant first strike for the Yokomo driver as title rival & defending champion Joern Neumann set the fourth fastest time.  With both drivers coming into the event tied on points, the title will effectively be decided by which of the two driver finishes higher in this evening’s A-Main.

‘I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t super fast but we were in the right ball park and the others crashed too much’, that was how Martin summed up his TQ run.  While he would get his B-Max 4 up on two wheels, unlike his rivals he didn’t need to be marshalled over the 5-minutes.  Looking to the second of the four qualifiers, the British driver said ‘we need to do some work and make it (the buggy) a little better for the next one’.  Team-mate Marc Rheinard, a former 4WD European Champion, would post the 7th fastest time.  The German said his B-Max 4 was difficult to drive but overall the biggest problem was he ‘just made too many mistakes’.

Posting a new fastest lap of the event in the first qualifier, the only driver to run a 23-seconds lap, Bayer said his XB4 was ‘really good’ but with himself and Matsukura pushing each other so hard at the front they both made mistakes.  Securing his only EOS win here last year, he said himself and Matsukura are faster compared to the others and planning to leave his car unchanged he would bring back his driving a notch to cut out the mistakes, him need to be marshalled three times in Q1. Team-mate Martin Wollanka would set the 5th fastest time.  The Austrian said his XB4 was easy to drive at the start but towards the end got more difficult and he is not sure if it was down to the car’s set-up and just his driving style changing over the course of the qualifier.

Throwing away a TQ run on the final lap when he traction rolled his Kyosho and lost over 5-seconds, Matsukura said traction had increased a little compared to practice.  Causing his Lazer ZX6 to be edgy the World Championship runner-up said he was constantly having to try catch it from traction rolling, unfortunately not able to do so on the last lap.  For Q2 he will make a camber change to try and make it somewhat more comfortable to drive.

‘Better than expected’ was how Neumann described his qualifying pace.  The Serpent driver said he was surprised both by finishing fourth and how his buggy felt to drive.  Changing from a carbon to an alloy chassis for qualifying, the 3-time consecutive 4WD champion said his SRX-4 had less traction as a result and it was now ‘easier to drive’.  With one 3-second mistake, he said he would leave the buggy unchanged and just try to make the next one a clean run.

Winner of yesterday’s 2WD action, Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski completed the Top 6.  The 13-year-old said while the run contained two mistakes they were ‘too slow’.  Suffering with too much rear grip and struggling with how the CAT K1 Aero is bouncing on the flat jump landings he said they had no choice but to try something different for Q2.

Eight fastest Ryan Cavalieri said, ‘we have a lot of improvement to do’.  Describing the track as ‘so out of the range’, the Associated driver continued, ‘we are like a small boy in a big town and we are lost’.  Suffering one 3-second mistake he said cutting those out would be a help but in terms of his B44.3 set-up they ‘still need to figure out a few things’.

Completing the Top were up and coming talents Joona Haatanen and Frederik Hovgaard, both running in the 3rd fastest heat.  11-years-old, almost set to turn 12, Haatanen said his run was ‘ok’ except for some issues with traffic.  Suffering from the same problem as most of the field, too much traction, the Finn said he would also like to get his B44.3 to land better but for now he would just try focus on adapting himself and try to drive around the problem as best he can.  A former EOS A-Finalist, 15-year-old Hovgaard was happy with his opening run, the Dane describing it is as ‘decent’.

View the complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.