After a cold and rainy week of testing weather, conditions changed for the better on the first decisive day of the fifth ROTAX Winter Cup at Campillos (ES). On Friday almost 140 drivers were faced with the first trial of strength: The qualifying practice took place on a dry track with sunny sky, ultimately ending the game of hide and seek by putting everyone’s cards on the table.
In the DD2 category Sean Babington from the UK was quickest man on the 1.566 metres long circuit. Recently switched to the Strawberry Racing team, Babington managed a time of 1:03.487 minutes and was slightly faster than the reigning Winter Cup champion Xen de Ruwe (ART Grand Prix) and local hero Oriol Dalmau Caballero (Motor Club Deportivo Creixell). “I finally recovered from my rib injury last year, so that I am completely fit again. We struggled a bit in the free practice sessions but managed to find a perfect set-up for the qualifying”, stated pole sitter Babington. Andreas Backman (Strawberry Racing) from Sweden and Sodikart factory driver Anthony Abbasse from France kept in touch with the leader and completed the top five positions as fourth and fifth. Yet Abbasse got some bad news: The technical check registered underweight which threw him back to the very back of the grid. A close decision was reserved for the DD2 Masters classification. The top three drivers took positions right next to each other. Best man seemed to be Guillaume Berteaux (Kartagene) who set the best time until he was disqualified due to a technical non-conformity. So Florent Lambert (Tatum Racing) inherited the pole ahead of Martin Pierce (Praga Racing Team).
The Austrian Thomas Preining (Team TKP) seized his experience in the junior class and put his FA-kart on the pole position for the heats. “Since it was finally dry and sunny we had a lot to work on the kart in order to find the right set-up. I am really happy to have reached the best time. Thanks to my new team of TKP which does an awesome job thus far”, said Preining. Behind him his teammate Richard Verschoor from the Netherlands completed a double success for TKP. Zak Fulk (Coles racing) from the UK took third place of the qualifying sessions just ahead of his opponents Juri Vips (Strawberry Racing) from Estonia and Spain’s lady driver Marta Garcia (MGL Racing Xtreme).
In the grid of almost 50 seniors Joseph Reilly (Strawberry Racing) set the benchmark. The man from the UK was the only driver managing a time under 65 seconds. Definitively he drove a best time of 1:04.919 minutes thus putting himself on pole position. Behind him Dries Vanthoor (Team TKP) from the Netherlands drove second best time ahead of the reigning European junior champion Guan Yu Zhou (Strawberry Racing), giving a promising debut in the senior class. That applied to his teammate Jai Nijjar who followed in fourth position just in front of Jack Constable (Prozenza Motorsport).
Info & Photo RGMMC