David Ronnefalk crowned 2018 2WD European Champion
The 2018 EFRA 1/10th Electric Buggy European Championship are held in Reims, France this week. On the FFVRC club’s slippery clay indoor track the 2WD portion of the event saw a great qualifying battle between Team Associated’s Joona Haatanen and Schumacher’s Michal Orlowski who would be trading TQs each of the first four qualifying rounds until Yokomo’s Lee Martin made himself only the third TQ driver with a win in round 5. However it was still Haatanen with the overall from Orlowski 2nd. Lee would grab the 3 spot on the grid thanks to his TQ, promoting HB Racing’s David Ronnefalk, who looked to be fast all week, into 4th on the grid.
The opening A-main then was won by the pole sitter as Michal Orlowski had to settle for 2nd but in front of a storming Ronnefalk. A1 clearly showed the difficulties of the track with all drivers have at least one moment on the slippery and demanding surface. A2 saw an early mistake of Haatanen and also Orlowski had a run to forget, only finishing in 7th position while Haatanen was able to get at least a 3rd place in. Up front the fight was on between Ronnefalk and Martin with the two being separated by only a tenth of a second on the line. The third and decisive A-main again saw Joona and Michal in troubles while Martin and Ronnefalk stole the show. Orlowski made a mistake in the final stages of the race which lead to a DNF with about 40 seconds to go while Haatanen only managed to get a 6th place in that at least won him 3rd overall. Up front it was a 3-horse game between Orlowski, Martin and Ronnefalk until Michal had to retire, leaving Lee and David battle it out until the finish line with Lee edging out David by 0.3s, however this result was enough to win David Ronnefalk the 2018 EFRA 2WD Buggy title in the tie-breaker as Lee took the overall runner-up spot due to the slower tie-breaker time. The Euros now continue with the 4WD portion.
2WD Buggy final results:
1. David Ronnefalk – HB Racing
2. Lee Martin – Yokomo
3. Joona Haatanen – Team Associated
4. Neil Cragg – Team Associated
5. Renaud Savoya – TLR
6. Michal Orlowski – Schumacher
7. Bruno Coelho – Xray
8. Davide Ongaro – Team Associated
9. Jörn Neumann – Schumacher
10.Clement Boda – Team Associated
Image: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]
