Last weekend in France the EFRA 1/8th Electric Buggy European Championships 2018 has been held at Carca’s track (Club Automobile Radio Commandée Artésien). The brushless Buggy Euros were to be decided over 3 x 10 Minute A Finals with the best 2 to count.
The track was compact and featured every possibly surface (Astro, Brick, Dirt, two types of concrete to name but some) a factor that was making tyre choice a major headache for all the drivers. Jean-Perrick Sartel conquered the Pole, followed by David Ronnefalk, the Monegasque racer Thomas Musso and Italy’s Davide Ongaro.
Despite all the big names of Nitro 1/8 being in attendance, the only “superstar” who could get close to the two French speaking drivers was reigning champion David Ronnefalk with a brace of second place.
Leg One
Sartel leap into the lead followed by Ronnefalk and it seemed that the Swede would soon overtake the Frenchman till an big off dropped him down to a distant 4th. Musso and Ongaro then enetertained us with another great battle eventually decided in Ongaros favour, but all the time Ronnefalk was recovering from his earlier mistake and got past Ongaro to re take 2ndon the penultimate lap with a great 3 corner pass. Through out this action behind Sartel led and despite a couple of “bobbles” himself took the win relatively untroubled.
Leg Two
If Leg one was relatively untroubled, Jean Perrick Sartels run to his first European championship was a walk in the park as his rivals conspired to put themselves out of contention! David Ronnefalk crashed badly from second after 2 laps and then half a lap later Musso and Ongaro came together in the air resulting in race ending damage for the Italian and a huge loss of time for Thomas. Sartel then only had to pace himself for the rest of the race to take the title and he drove another exemplary race to bring it home for France.
Leg Three
Sartel, as is tradition, didn’t start leg three so it was left to Ongaro, Ronnefalk and Musso to fight it out for the bottom two steps on the podium. Again Ronnefalk seemed to have the pace, and again there were a couple of errors, which let Davide in for the win and second overall with Thomas Musso taking third for Monaco