Hagberg claims record 9th European 1:12 title

Alexander Hagberg has claimed his 9th EFRA 1:12 European Championship title, the Xray driver surpassing David Spashett as the championship’s most successful driver today in Messina, Italy. In qualifying, Hagberg would open with a TQ run adding three more over the 5 rounds. Topping the third round, defending Champion Marc Rheinard put his Awesomatix second on the grid ahead of Mathias Nedrebo, Simon Lauter and Martin Hudy. A1 would see Hagberg set the fastest lap as he pulled away out front to win the 8-minute encounter by over 4-seconds from Rheinard. A2 would see a lot more action with traffic playing crucial roles in the results. The first incident at the mid point of the race saw Rheinard get collected by Hudy’s car as it bounced off the outside boards on the straight and into the path of the German who was 1-second behind Hagberg at the time. This promoted Norwegian Nedrebo to second 3-seconds back from Hagberg, the Swede looking like the remaining 4-minutes would just be a formality to him taking a record 9th win. Hitting traffic on the penultimate lap, unfortunately contact with 1:8 GT World Champion Alessio Mazzeo would lead to a series of crashes for Hagbeg allowing Nedrebo through along with Jan Ratheisky. Unable to get the places back over the final lap, Hagberg finished P3 and the title race was still open. The final encounter however would see Hagberg lead home Rheinard and Nedrebo and lock in his ninth title 12-years after claiming his first one, also in Italy. Nedrebo would make it an Xray 1-2 with Rheinard completing the podium. It was to be a double title weekend for Xray as Adam Izsay became the new European Spec Champion. Starting from P2 behind the Excelerate of defending Champion Ollie Payne, the Hungarian would win the title thanks to his A1 winning time which gave him the tie-breaker over A3 winner Payne. Winning A2 from P3 on the grid, the Schumacher of Andrea Torregiani completed the podium at Raradise RC Arena.
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