CKN Euro Report: Defrancesco on the Podium at CIK European Championships

This past weekend Canadian Devlin Defrancesco proved that he is now a championship contender at the highest levels of KFJ karting in the world. Competing in the first round of the CIK European Karting Championships, held at the La Conca Karting Circuit in southern Italy, Defrancesco and his Morsicani Racing TonyKart were a threat all weekend long.

Qualifying on the pole-position on Friday, Defrancesco set the pace in the KFJ category that featured 67 drivers from around the world.

On Saturday, Defrancesco once again was ahead of his competition, winning three of his four heat races and finishing second in the final heat, to secure the pole-position for Sundays prefinal.

Sunday morning he was flawless through the prefinal, taking the win and position himself at the front of the grid for the all important final race of the weekend.

However, the start of the Final was not pleasant to Defrancesco who found his rivals push him wide in the opening corner and he fell back to ninth place. Battling hard though the 25km race, he would drive his TonyKart back to finish on the podium with a third place result, his first podium appearance in the KFJ division. Although he came up short of the victory, it was a still a breakout weekend for the driver who is still only fourteen years

old.

A second Canadian was also competing at La Conca as Kami Moreira-Laliberte also enjoyed one of his best performances to date. Racing with Team BabyRace aboard a TonyKart, Laliberte qualified 19th, ranked 15th after the heat races, fell one position to 16th in the Prefinal, and ultimately held the position through the Final race.

Devlin Defrancesco (r) on the podium in Italy (Photo courtesy: CIK)