Friday at the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals saw the final round of heat races as well as the last chance qualifiers. Adding even more of a twist to the weather this week, Mother Nature welcomed drivers to wet conditions, as well as light rain almost all morning long. A full round of warmup was on wet tires, then the heats began on dries only for it to rain again for a couple heat races, but once again drying before the round was complete. This twist made things very tricky and even caught a few drivers off guard forcing them to miss the closing time of Parc Ferme thus missing their heat race.
In Rotax Junior, the A vs D heat featured Coltin McCaughan on row one, as well as Gianfranco Mazzaferro and Devlin Defrancesco. While McCaughan had a great start and slotted into second, it would not last long and before he knew it, he was off track again this weekend and joined at the tail of the field. With bad luck hitting McCaughan, both Defrancesco and Mazzaferro also fell down the running order as it was an all around bad heat for Canada. The result would see McCaughan end up 29th, Defrancesco 31st and Mazzaferro 32nd, after losing a chain on the final lap.
Kingsley was the lone Canadian in the B vs C heat, with the rain returning and mechanics and drivers frantically changing tires. While seven drivers did not make it to the grid in time, Kingsley did. After getting through a tough start that saw him fall back to sixth, Kingsley would work his way back to fourth. Some tough action in the tricky wet conditions kept Kingsley on his toes and when the checkered flag flew, he wound up seventh.
With the points tallied, Kingsley was ranked 3rd and directly qualified for the main while Mazzaferro, Defrancesco and McCaughan were forced to the LCQ.
All three started deep in the field and a great start by both Mazzaferro and Defrancesco had them knocking on the doors of the top-ten early, while McCaughan was caught up in a crash in corner one. By lap three Mazzaferro had worked his way into sixth and the final transfer spot but the LCQ was far from over. Moving up to fifth Mazzaferro saw an opportunity to take fourth, but it proved costly as an incomplete pass would send him back to eighth with two laps to go. But he charged back and once again found himself in sixth, this time on the final lap. Unfortunately he would surrender the spot on the final tour and would have to settle for eighth at the line, and not transfer to Saturday. Defrancesco crossed in eleventh to end a disappointing weekend while McCaughan’s first trip to the Grand Finals ended early after such a positive start.
