The weather was good, despite a few clouds, at Campillos where the track was dry and the temperature close to 20° for the Qualifying Practice of the FIA Karting World Championship – OK which took place with 74 drivers and in alternation with the OK-Junior category. The absence of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, entered with the number 1 kart, was noticeable. The drivers did not enter the track until 3’30 from the end of each session.
In the first session, Cristian Bertuca (Birel ART/TM) was already under a minute on his first flying lap. Ugo Ugochukwu (KR/Iame) then took the lead and improved to 59’559 on his third run. This was the best performance of the session, a tenth ahead of Luigi Coluccio (Kosmic/Vortex). Joel Bergstrom (Exprit/TM) followed by 2 tenths, followed by Tuukka Taponen (Tony Kart/Vortex), with Olin Galli (CRG/Iame) taking 5th position.
Norton Andreasson (Tony Kart/Vortex) opened the scoring in the second session, followed by Matinius Stenshorne (Birel ART/TM) and Arten Severiukhin (Tony Kart/Vortex). Last to enter the track, Nikola Tsolov (KR/Iame) achieved provisional pole position in 59’407 on his second lap. His DPK Racing team-mate Daniel Briz Llull closed to within 0.141″, two thousandths ahead of Stenshorne. Joe Turney (Tony Kart/Vortex) was 4th fastest, two tenths behind Severiukhin.
Caspian Hagman (Tony Kart/Vortex) was the fastest driver ahead of Arvid Lindlad (KR/Iame) who gave it his all. Gabriel Gomez (CRG/Iame) then improved on Tsolov’s provisional pole with 59”391, a tenth faster than his compatriot Rafael Camara (KR/Iame). Lindblad was 3rd at 0.146”, followed two tenths further back by Karol Paciewicz (Tony Kart/Vortex) and Hagman. Evan Giltaire (KR/Iame) finished 7th just behind his team-mate Ariel Elkin (KR/Iame).
The first three sessions successively had the best performance. In the fourth session, the drivers started even later. Oscar Pedersen (Tony Kart/Vortex) was the fastest on his second run and did even better on the next lap with a time of 59’401. He was 2 tenths faster than Tymoteusz Kucharczyk (RK/TL), while Nicolo Cuman (Exprit/TM) confirmed his speed in 3rd place ahead of Rintaro Sato (Kosmic/Vortex) and Markus Kajak (Tony Kart/Vortex).
Brazilian driver Gabriel Gomez, who had not crossed the Atlantic to compete in a European race since the 2020 World Championship in Portugal, took pole position with CRG after his strong performance in the previous week’s Champions of the Future.
Info Kartcom with Kartlink / Photo © KSP