Updated! See Below.
He has inched closer and closer to victory each race thus far in 2014. Two European Championship pole-positions, multiple heat race wins and overall championship points, but until today, Canadian-born Devlin Defrancesco had never scored a victory in Europe.
That all changed Sunday June 22 at the second round of the CSAI Italian Championships in Sarno-Napoli, Italy.
Qualifying his Morsicani Racing TonyKart second-place on Saturday, Defrancesco finished third in his first heat race before advancing to win the second, setting himself on the pole-position for the first of two Final races on Sunday, a very similar feeling for the young driver who is now fluent in Italian as well.
Fighting off a challenge in the early goings of Final 1 on Sunday morning, Defrancesco was able to break free only a couple laps in. Cruising from there to the finish, Defrancesco not only took the victory, but also is now within two points of the overall KF-Junior championship lead.
Also in attendance, Kami Moreira-Laliberte is showing great pace in KF-Junior, qualifying tenth, and racing forward in both his heat races. However, a lap one incident forced him out of the race before it could even get going in Final 1. He will have to start from the rear for Final 2, be he will be working forward. For Final two, Defrancesco will start eighth as the top-8 finishers from Final 1 are inverted.
In the Mini division, featuring 47 drivers, Canadian Antonio Serravalle was fifth in Final 1. He will start third for Final 2.
Update: Sunday 12:00pm
In Final 2, Defrancesco recovered from a bad start where he fell back to eleventh to finish again on the podium, this time in second place. Setting multiple fast laps in the closing stages, he just ran short of time as the checkered flag flew.
A very tough weekend for Laliberte ended in another disappointing result as he was once again involved in an opening lap crash.
Finally, Antonio Serravalle enjoyed another spirited race in MINI. Falling back to 21st after the first lap, he drove the wheels off his TonyKart machine all the way back to tenth place at the finish-line!
