EFRA GP 1/8 Buggy in Oberbüren (Switzerland), 8th – 10th July 2011
As the drivers arrive on Friday morning, a very big tent wait for them to gives place all the drivers and the restaurant area. It rained the night before and so the track was wet but in good conditions. From 10 am till 6 pm the drivers could run four practices round to get familiar with the track.
Saturday morning the track was wet again but no rain for the last practice round.
Carlos Gomez from the EFRA was at the track and opened the event.
Just before the start of the first Qualifying round it began to rain. The rain accompanied the whole first round of Qualifying. The fastest was Dominique Gross (Serpent/Ninja/JConcepts) from Switzerland, second was 5 seconds behind Roman Kummer (Agama/TechnoPower/VP-Pro) from Switzerland and third Hannes Käufler (TLR/nVision/Losi) from Germany.
For the second round, the track was wet but no more rain. It was Jeremy Pittet (Kyosho/Orion) from Switzerland who was the fastest in front of former World-Champion (1998) Daniel Reckward (Mugen/RB) from Germany and Robin Frischkopf (Xray/RB) from Switzerland.
In the third round, the young French Guillaume Hebert (Mugen/OS) was the fastest in front of the young Swiss Yves Schmidlin (Mugen/OS) and Daniel Reckward (Mugen/RB).
The fourth and last Qualifying round, it was again Jeremy Pittet (Kyosho/Orion) who was the fastest in front of Guillaume Hebert (Mugen/OS) and Robin Frischkopf (Xray/RB).
Saturday night the MORC Club have organised one of the best RC-Party’s ever seen, but what happens in Oberbüren stays in Oberbüren!
Sunday morning the track was wet again. In the low-finals the cars became dirty again but no water-puddle on the track. After the two 1/2-Finals the 12 Finalists was established.
After a clean Start from the Pole, Daniel Reckward did a mistake in the second lap and Jeremy Pittet took the lead. Jeremy Pittet had planed to do 9 minutes pitstops but he flames out in his in-lap. Still a little bit fuel in his tank, his mechanic tells me, that he has that problem since a few weeks and didn’t know why. He’s planning to go to normal 7:30 pitstops in the next races! Now Daniel Reckward was back in the lead and controlled the race from the front. Robin Frischkopf und Jeremy Pittet fighted for the second place and changed there positions a few times. Stefan Byesse had a other pitstop strategy and was after his last pitstop in second position. He drives fast and only has 5 seconds arrearage to his Mugen/RB teammate Reckward in the last lap. After 45 minutes Daniel Reckward was in a new lap and so Byesse could not catch up more and finshed the race on second position. Frischkopf and Pittet were close together but Robin Frischkopf managed to keep his third position. Fourth with 3 seconds back was Jeremy Pittet and in fifth position the Italian Alberto Papa (Kyosho/OS).
Final Result:
1. Reckward Daniel (Germany) - Mugen / RB / Tourex X-500 - 72 45:38.021
2. Byesse Stefan (Germany) - Mugen / RB / Tourex X-500 - 71 45:05.350
3. Frischkopf Robin (Switzerland) - Xray / RB / GQ Spade - 71 45:14.932
4. Pittet Jeremy (Switzerland) - Kyosho / Orion / AKA - 71 45:17.943
5. Papa Alberto (Italia) - Kyosho / OS / AKA - 69 45:01.934
6. Heim Marc (Switzerland) - Xray / Picco / Proline - 69 45:05.145
7. Affolter Christoph (Switzerland) - Mugen / Ninja / Tourex - 69 45:05.820
8. Stettler Marco (Switzerland) - Kyosho / Orion / AKA - 69 45:28.589
9. Kallen Joachim (Switzerland) - HotBodies / Orion / AKA - 69 45:39.747
10. Käufler Hannes (Germany) - TLR / nVision / AKA - 66 42:31.802
11. Schmidlin Yves (Switzerland) - Mugen / OS / Tourex - 66 44:39.085
12. Hebert Guillaume (France) - Mugen / OS / Proline - 60 40:15.975
Report: MORC / Philippe Gross