Welcome to the Neo-Buggy.net coverage of the 2007 EFRA European Championships! Full reports of each day's action will be documented here. Results and race reports can be expected. We will also try and interview all of the top drivers as well as a pick of our favourite photos. Our coverage of this event is kindly supported by Kyosho.

This is what greeted us on arrival on wednesday, a fantastic track situated alongside a canal just outside the French town of Auxerre. A typical European flat track makes a change for most Neo-Buggy readers after our coverage of a number of US events recently. European tracks differ greatly to American ones. US tracks tend to be 3D with large jumps on dirt surfaces, whereas the European tracks are flat, fast or technical and typically multi-surface.

Coming into this event is a huge number of drivers from every part of Europe. The world championships are biennial and skip this year, therefore for European drivers this is the largest race of the year. This creates not only a lot of pressure from themselves, but also the sponsors who they represent.

The format over the week is quite simple. Tuesday and Wednesday provide practice for the drivers, it is essential in ensuring they can get their buggy setup to provide the very best for the week ahead. Thursday and Friday are days of Qualifying. Drivers will endeavour to achieve as many laps as possible in 5 minute heats. The drivers are then put into their representative positions for the Finals on Saturday. The finals are carried out in Christmas Tree format.

You may be forgiven for thinking the practice rounds are not important, however they do hold more of a purpose then might first be thought. Rounds 2 and 3 of practice are used to seed the drivers. These rounds are 15 minutes long, with the last 5 minutes timed for seeding purpose, the first 10 minutes providing time for drivers to familiarise themselves with the track and make small changes to their buggy. Therefore if a a driver does not perform well they could be placed in a heat with slower drivers, who may create traffic, slowing the driver down.... nothing is simple for these top level racers!

Arriving at the track in late afternoon on Wednesday we learn that only two of the intended three practice rounds had be run. Apparently this had been down to reseeding problem, computer problem, or something similar.

It may come as no surprise to some that frenchman Yannick Aigoin, last years European champion, is on fire with his RB powered Xray. However on the final practice of the day the Crono of Italian driver Davide Tortorici was just a few seconds off Yannick's pace. It came as a surprise to some that Davide is using the new Crono RS7 which is still in prototype stage, rather than then race proven RS03 which has been used in all major meetings up to date.

It is still early on, and it's easy to read to much into the practice results. There are a lot of quick drivers out there and I think it would be fair to say that no-one is safe. Check out the Thursday report for details of our first full day at Euro's with interviews, lots of top photos, results and more.

Top 10 drivers after Wednesday practice:

1. Yannick Aigoin
2. Davide Tortorici
3. Seb Leonard
4. Raul Peris
5. Joseph Quagraine
6. Jerome Sartel
7. Nico Rodriguez
8. Riccardo Rabitti
9. Dani Vega
10. Robert Batlle