The title slips away

After winning two out three of his heats at Angerville in France, Arnaud Kozlinski had put himself well into the running for the Formula A world championship title. Unfortunately the rain and race conditions scuppered Koko’s hopes and those of the Intrepid team along with them.

The disappointment on the faces the Intrepid team on the evening after the world championship race was that much the greater because confidence had been running high after Arnaud Kozlinski’s aggressive form during the first part of the event. The French driver and his team had done everything they could to get to Angerville in the best possible shape. “This season we have already won the Formula A World Cup, we’ve been competitive all season in the European Championship, which I finished in 3rd place, and we worked so hard to get ready for this World championship race. So I was feeling confident going into the race, I knew I was racing a chassis capable of taking me all the way to the title”.
The time trials appeared to back up Arnaud’s confidence as he clocked up the 6th fastest time, only missing out on pole position by less than one tenth of a second. But the first heat didn’t go entirely to plan. “Right on the first bend someone mounted me, making me spin off the track and damaging my kart. I wasn’t able to get going again. But I managed to win the next two heats and I was feeling good with the way the kart was performing”. Indeed, Arnaud clocked his best times during the final laps of each heat, stating his intentions for the 30 km final race.

On the Sunday the weather took a turn for the worse. Morning rain on the track turned it into a skating rink and the pre final race turned out to be quite a challenge for the drivers. Arnaud did what he could to limit the damage. A World championship race run under such conditions is not ideal, but Arnaud had a smile on his face as he left the paddock for the final, it having stopped raining some while before and the corners were dry. However, weather forecast notwithstanding (it was supposed to stay fine for the rest of the day), another downpour drenched the track just a few minutes before the keenly-awaited final race. “On the starting grid all the track officials would allow us to do was fit our rain tyres, but they wouldn’t let us touch the kart set up. For example, we couldn’t change the position of the air intakes, which meant that my engine started sucking in water thrown up by the front off-side wheel and lost a lot of power. I’m gutted with my 14th place especially after having got off to such a good start – I was sitting in the Top-10 after the first lap”. Alessandro Manetti, one of the Frenchman’s support team, was also looking crestfallen. “Arnaud definitely could have won on the dry. It’s a shame to see the biggest race of the year spoilt to this extent by the rain”.
Arnaud Kozlinski’s team-mate, Spaniard Juan Nieves, who had come 6th in the World Cup race in Japan, fared no better in the race despite having qualified for the final stages in brilliant fashion. Meanwhile, Briton Lee Bell was distinguishing himself at the wheel of his Intrepid in the ICA World Cup race. The Williams Motorsport driver ran out the brilliant winner of one heat but unfortunately was forced to drop out of the final. As for Canadian driver Tyler Dueck, he did his best to master to the vagaries of the Angerville circuit in the few days that were available to him. It wasn’t easy for him up coming against some of the best drivers in the class but the Intrepid driver picked up a lot of valuable experience in the process.