The uniqueness of the new WSK Champions Cup saw drivers back in action for the second straight week at the La Conca Circuit in southern Italy. The two round double-feature crowned the seasons first champions in the four premiere European divisions; KZ2, KF, KFJ and MINI.
Once again a trio of Canadians were in action under a wide-array of weather conditions; rain on Friday, cloudy on Saturday and sunshine of Sunday. Heres how it went down for our drivers flying the Maple Leaf.
MINI: Serravalle Dominates Early On
After his strong opening weekend, Markham, Ontario’s Antonio Serravalle and his Pserra Racing powered TonyKart returned to La Conca hoping to improve on his sixth place result.
His weekend started off very well as he managed to earn the pole-position in the MINI division and backed it up with three heat race wins setting himself on the provisional pole for Sunday’s prefinal.
Leading most of Prefinal A, Serravalle had to settle for second at the finish line and started the Final from fourth (group B had the faster lap time). A tough start in the Final saw the Canadian fall back to ninth place on the opening lap in the ten-lap run Serravalle had to claw his way back to fifth place at the finish.
The race was won by Muizzuddin Bin Abdul Gafar of Italy on a CRG chassis.
KFJ: Positive Weekend for Laliberte; Disaster for Defrancesco
70 drivers returned to La Conca in KFJ, but things were much different on
track for our Canadians.
Coming off a very positive weekend to kick off his season, Devlin Defrancesco and his Morsicani Racing/Tony Kart just didn’t seem quite up to speed, while Montreal’s Kami Moreira-Laliberte enjoyed a much better weekend on his Baby Race/TonyKart package.
In Qualifying the two sessions saw a great difference in track condition, forcing officials to combine the results with the fastest group earning the even numbered results and the slower group in the odd numbers. Laliberte wound up 22nd while Defrancesco was 30th.
The heat races started off strong with Laliberte with a sixth and fourth, but disaster in heats three and four moved him well down the order. On the other hand Defrancesco strategically managed to run four clean heat races. The final ranking would see Defrancesco 18th and Laliberte 28th, with both drivers advancing to Prefinal B.
Laliberte was able to make a clean run and finished eleventh to advance to the Final. However for the second straight weekend Defrancesco found himself in trouble on the opening lap of the Prefinal. Forced to drive from the rear of the field after lap one,
Defrancesco was only able to drive back to 24th and did not qualify for the main event.
Earning the best result of his European karting career thus far, Laliberte completed the Final in 14th.
The race was won by Max Fewtrell of the United Kingdom on an FA Kart, with Italian Lorenzo Travisanutto second on a PCR and Daniel Ticktum third on a Zanardi Kart.
