Sodi present on all fronts

Sodikart has been ever-present amongst the leaders over the past ten days. First of all in Italy, on the Lonato track, where Damien Vuillaume (Max Senior) and Jérôme Bourquard (Max Master) brought their Sodis home first in the Rotax Mojo Max Euro Challenge.
Next, during the 3rd round of the French championships, Nathanaël Berthon, Anthony Abbasse and Mike Courquin made sure the Sodi colours were flying on the podium at Lavenet, during the Ascension long weekend.

A double for Sodi in Formula A
Whatever the category, whatever the make of engine or tyres, whatever the race team or the tuning shop, the high performance Sodi chassis continues to shine thanks to its ease of use and adaptability to all race conditions with minimal set up times. Sodikart boss Gildas Mérian was delighted with the clutch of good performances at Lavelanet. “Our aim as a factory is not just to win victories with works drivers; we also want to produce a chassis that enables all drivers shine and get the best possible results. This explains why we have four SR5 chassis units placed in the top seven in the Formula A class and three others in the top quartet in ICA, with different teams and different tyre makes”.
In Formule A, Jean-Eric Vergne was on top from start to finish. “The weekend went like a dream”, said our hero. “It’s not every day you win pole position, all three of your heats, the prefinal and the final! We quickly found the right set up during practice. All we had to do then was fine tune the settings according to the track temperature and number of laps in the race. Even in the final, in which I got off to a poor start, I was serene in the knowledge that I had the right machine to get a win”.
Vergne was racing with Sodikart factory-prepared TM engines but Nathanaël Berthon also won a prefinal/final double running on Braun Racing Parilla engines. Highly effective when fitted with Dunlops, the SR5 chassis also demonstrated its potential with other makes of tyre, with Laurent Miskiewicz finishing fourth on a Mattana-powered SR5 running on Vegas and Thomas Letailleur coming in 7th on Bridgestones. Thomas was highly pleased with his Formula A come back. “I’ve only been racing manual 125s over recent years so I wasn’t expecting to get back up to speed so quickly! But I soon got used to the chassis and managed to climb to 7th place despite having had to drop out of one of Saturday’s heats”.
In the Championship event, the four places behind the winner were taken by Sodi units driven by Vergne, Miskiewicz, Sarrazin (who clocked up the fastest lap in the final) and Berthon, the first pair coming within a few tenths of a second of the winner. “Our gamble of trying to place two young drivers fresh out of ICA amongst this season’s Formula A leaders has paid off”, enthused Gildas Mérian.

Good work by Abbasse
Things are going just great for Sodi in ICA as well! Anthony Abbasse and Mike Courquin strengthened their position at the top of the championships with more good performances. After Mike’s masterful driving at Varennes in April, this weekend it was Anthony’s turn to shine. Abbesse got off to a better start than his team-mate in the prefinal race and lead the field home, with Courquin coming 3rd after a relatively poor start. In the final race, the two young drivers took Sodi onto the podium once again by winning 2nd and 3rd places in the race. Loïc Reguillon, driving for Braun Racing, wrapped up a brilliant day for Sodi by finishing 4th. Over in the Junior category, Jim Pla was not so lucky. After finishing 5th in his prefinal – and coming within a tenth of a second of the two leaders- the Sodi driver got caught up in a crash at the start of the final.

Sodi wins a double
The challenging Lonato circuit in Italy has quite a reputation as a kart-breaker. But the Sodi chassis was up to test, as Damien Vuillaume and Jérôme Bourquard shone in the second round of the Rotax Mojo Max Euro Challenge last May 21. They drove masterful prefinal and final races in this European class series which brings together all the big manufacturers in the paddock. Virtually unknown on the international circuit, Team Free Kart driver Vuillaume made quite a name for himself by beating the two Rotax aces Martin Pierce and Wesleigh Orr in the top category, while Bourquard (BRK) moved up to the top of the Masters championship placings. Another great performance was that of Jeffrey Van Bergeijk, who came second in the Junior class driving for the team entered by Sodikart’s Dutch importer. Bravo !