KZ2 Final: victory and title for Slater

The sky was still blue and clear at the time of the European KZ2 Championship Final at Sarno, with temperatures approaching 35°. Freddie Slater (Birel ART/TM) and Maksim Orlov (Parolin/TM) occupied the front row of the grid ahead of Cristian Bertuca (Birel ART/TM) and Paavo Tonteri (CRG/TM). With a lead of more than 40 points, Slater was the clear favourite for the title, while the battle for the places of honour promised to be epic.

Slater got off to a perfect start, followed by Bertuca and Tonteri, then Maxim Rehm (Birel ART/TM)
Tomass Stolcermanis (Energy/TM) and Daniel Vasile (Birel ART/TM). Orlov was only 6th on the first lap. In 10th position, Egor Nosov (IPK/TM) had made up six places. Alex Powell (KR/Iame) crashed out on lap 2, with Kean Nakamura-Berta (KR/Iame) retiring almost simultaneously. Slater began to pull away in front of Bertuca, while Vasile was hot on Tonteri’s heels and passed him on lap 5. Slater had a 1.2″ lead at the halfway point, but the gaps remained small in the top five between Bertuca, Vasile, Tonteri and Stolcermanis. Jorge Pescador (Kali’Kart/TM) threw in the towel on lap 11, while Vasile moved up to 2nd ahead of Bertuca. Stolcermanis had moved up to 4th by taking advantage of contact between Bertuca and Tonteri, who was now 5th. Artem Severiukhin (Parolin/TM) moved up to 6th ahead of Nosov. Rehm gave up on the 15th lap. The first two places seemed assured for Slater and Vasile, but the battle for P3 was still uncertain between Bertuca and Stolcermanis. Slater took the Championship by winning the Final 1.7” ahead of Vasile, the runner-up. Bertuca finished 3rd ahead of Stolcermanis for a hat-trick of Birel ART wins, but their positions were reversed in the Championship. Tonteri completed the top five ahead of Nosov. Orlov was disqualified for causing an incident, Genis Civico (Parolin/TM) was 7th and Jean Nomblot (Sodi/TM) 8th, followed by Andrea Dalé (CRG/TM) and Tim Gerhards (Sodi/TM) in the top 10. Mattéo Spirgel (Sodi/TM) was up to 16th (+4 places) despite a spoiler penalty. 23rd position (+6 places) for Gabin Leuillet (Birel ART/TM), but Thomas Imbourg (Sodi/TM) had to retire.

Info Kartcom with Kartlink / Photo © KSP