Back to Italy to his great pleasure, with weekend Sean Gelael raced at the third round of the WSK Master Series on the Val Vibrata circuit, in the mountain region of Abruzzo. He started off well enough during time qualifying with an excellent 9th time out of 41 entered drivers in KF2 and ahead of experienced drivers such as Fioravanti and Giovinazzi, despite the fact that it was his first time on this track. 7th and 5th in the qualifying heats, everything would have ended well if he hadn’t suffered a technical problem in the second heat: his transmission had been adjusted by mistake for rain conditions while the track was dry, so he could not do better than 18th.
Qualified for the first time to the final phase of a WSK meeting, Sean discovered to his cost the aggressiveness of his competitors in the middle of the fight. The pre-final was marked by an endless series of passes, favoured by the special layout of this track. Forced to keep an eye on both the front of the race as well as on the drivers behind him, Sean lost a lot in this race and concluded with a 21st place, but without any collision.
By analysing his performance with Jean-Philippe Guignet, he had the time to learn from this new situation and started in full confidence despite a sudden heavy rain shower. But he reacted well, as proven by his 14th place before the “slow” procedure was initiated after an accident. Unfortunately the restlessness of some drivers during restart caused a collision he could not avoid. Due to broken tie rods, he was forced to retire. A pity, considering that Sean was fast on the soaking wet track, even faster than his new Italian team mate Alfredo Gagliardi.
Info Kartcom / © Photo KSP – Giovanni Cuna