Maifield comes to China empty handed but leaves as double World Champion

Ryan Maifield came to the 1:10 Offroad World Championships in Xiamen, China, empty handed in terms of the sport’s biggest prize. Declaring early on he was not a fan of the track, 7 days on the Yokomo driver leaves as a double World Champion becoming only the fourth driver in the 17 runnings of the championship to do so. Having claimed his first ever World title when he wrapped up the 2WD title in A2, the deciding of the 4WD title would go down to the wire with A3 throwing up one of the craziest World finals ever with Maifield himself admitting he didn’t really remember what happened.  In the end, it was hard to follow the chaos of which car was flying off where, it was his protege Spencer Rivkin who would win the decider from 5th on the grid as Maifield got by Tessmann on the final lap. The third of the title contenders going into A3, David Ronnefalk would lead from after the first lap, staying there for 2-laps until a mistake.  With further mistakes ending his chances of a first EP World title, he opted to pull up for the final two laps and watch the thrilling finish, his win in A2 & 3rd in the opener enough to secure second overall. With his surprise A3 win, Rikvin snatched the final step of the podium on tie break leaving Top Qualifier Tessmann with fourth, with Xray team-mate & outgoing champion Bruno Coelho ending up 9th despite lining up 3rd for his title defence.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.