#CoupedeMontreal
Briggs + Shifter Report: Laviolette, Sabourin Execute on Last Lap for Victories at St-Celestin
Round three of the Coupe de Montreal was full of excitement
The Coupe de Montreal was back at SC Performance Karting in St-Celestin coinciding with the St-Jean de Baptiste holiday for round three of their six-race calendar this past weekend.
High temperatures, plenty of humidity, the threat of rain at any moment and smoke-filled skies provided a challenging weekend of weather. Still, thankfully rain never interrupted the two-day event and Sunday was an action-packed day of racing on the track.
Race Results | Rotax Report (coming soon) | Photo Gallery (Tuesday)
Briggs Cadet: Chasse controls all weekend long
A perfect final lap in Qualifying helped steer Liam Fontaine (Parolin Kart) to the pole position. However, when it came time to race wheel-to-wheel, Olivier Chasse (Kart Republic) was the young man in control of the Cadet division.
Chasse jumped out to the lead as quickly as he could in the Prefinal and while Fontaine remained close, and even passed him for a short time, Chasse controlled much the race. The Final was a similar story, but this time the pair were joined by Justin Michaud (SodiKart).
The three broke free from the chasing pack and at the halfway mark, Fontaine took his shot at the lead, and Michaud followed him through. Wasting no time getting back to the top, Chasse overtook both drivers on the following lap to regain the lead and control for good.
Keeping a small gap of two-to-three kart lengths ahead of Michaud and Fontaine, Chasse drove perfectly to the finish line and celebrated his third straight Coupe de Montreal victory in the Briggs Cadet division.
Michaud held off Fontaine on the final laps to secure second place while a little further up the road were William Choquette (Formula K) and Giulio Berlinguet (BirelART).
Briggs Junior: Last lap pass scores victory for Sabourin
The Junior Briggs drivers continue to impress us with their unpredictability and the number of drivers capable of standing on the podium each race weekend. The competition is stout and we were rewarded with another superb race.
The race was red-flagged just before halfway to attend to a medical incident off the track, but the drivers remained focused and when it was time to resume, were right back into action.
Leading the way was PreFinal winner Alexandre Goulet (Formula K) with Arnaud Sabourin (BirelART), Mindy Croteau (BirelART) Jacob Messely (CL Kart) and Alexis Vaillancourt (BirelART) tucked right in behind.
The lead pack remained tight until the final lap when Sabourin was intensely looking for a place to pass. Goulet held him off through the opening sector, with Vaillancourt slipping by Messely in the middle sector.
It all came down to the final corner and Goulet left just enough room for Sabourin to pounce. Completing the pass and exiting the corner with the pack spread out behind him, Sabourin put his head down to stay ahead and celebrated the victory just ahead of Goulet and Vaillancourt, who gained the position exiting the final corner. Croteau and Messely just missed the podium after strong efforts as the top eight drivers would cross the finish line within one second of the winner.
Briggs Senior: Final lap showdown earns Laviolette the win
For the second time in three weeks, a very large number of Briggs Senior arrived ready to race near Trois-Rivieres. Two weeks ago it was Cup Karts Canada with over 50 and this weekend there were 43 drivers hungry for victory.
Split up for Qualifying and the PreFinals, with the top-18 of each transferring to the Final, the racing was energetic, as to be expected.
As the only driver to break the 1:04 barrier in Qualifying, Sebastien Laviolette (EOS Kart) led the way in Prefinal A. He was able to break away in the race with Simon Belanger (SodiKart) and the two cruised to an easy 1-2 finish to ensure up-front starting positions for the Feature. In PreFinal B, Mickael Aubin-Poirier (BirelART) maintained the top spot all race long to lock himself onto the front row for the Final with round 1 and 2 winner Leopold Schrevel (Kart Republic) just behind.
It was a calm start up front in the Final with Aubin-Poirier jumping to the lead ahead of Laviolette followed by Belanger, Schrevel, Alex Murphy (BirelART) and Maika Chamberland (Kubica Kart).
On lap five, contact between Schrevel and Belanger exiting the final corner sent both drivers for a ride, with Chamberland just barely slipping by and into third place. Schrevel was able to stay under control and remained fourth while Belanger fell back to seventh behind Murphy and Ari Korkodilos (OTK Kart).
This allowed the front two to open a gap and the pair worked together for the remainder of the race to ensure they wouldn’t be caught. With the last lap board displayed, Laviolette chose the outside of corner one and appeared to pull off a great pass. Except Aubin-Poirer was able to hold the outside line all the way around corners two and three to regain the top spot.
Aubin-Poirer was driving a great defensive line until the two would make contact in the penultimate corner, sending Aubin-Poirer into a spin and slowing up Laviolette.
Able to maintain just enough momentum to stay in front through the final corner, Laviolette was the first to the checkered flag. Schrevel and Belanger, who had a beautiful recovery drive, were wheel-to-wheel coming to the finish line with Schrevel just barely hanging onto the spot before contact after the finish line sent him spinning into the tires. Chamberland and Murphy closed out the top five.
Briggs Masters: Lessard is simply untouchable
Eric Lessard was lights out this weekend in Briggs Masters. He set the tone Saturday in Qualifying by posting a lap time more than a half-second faster than his competition and that pace continued on Sunday as well.
Leading every lap in both the Prefinal and Final, Lessard (Intrepid Kart) was unchallenged all the way to the checkered flag and he celebrated with a point to his father standing trackside.
In a wheel-to-wheel battle for second place, Mike Larouche (Formula K) and Jessica Plante (SodiKart) capped off their race with a photo finish where Larouche was only 0.004 seconds ahead at the finish line.
Shifter: Greco drives off into the distance
Stop us if you’ve heard this before. Davide Greco (BirelART) drove off into the distance to secure the victory in Shifter.
While Charles Gauthier (BirelART) was able to execute the perfect lap in Qualifying to secure the pole position, when the green flag flew to start the PreFinal, it was all Greco up front and once he got into the lead, he never looked back.
Greco would go on to score his third Coupe de Montreal win of the season over Charles Robin (SodiKart) and Jeffrey Petriello (CRG), who had to start at the rear and drove through the field to a podium finish.
In the Shifter Masters sub-division, Dany St-Hilaire (BirelART) was seven seconds ahead of his competitors to take the win while Francesco Vassallo (BirelART) and Martin Janson (BirelART) joined him on the podium.
The Coupe de Montreal will return to action on July 15-16 when the series returns to Mont-Tremblant. Registration for the event will open soon.
