Munkholm and the Danes, masters on their home ground

Held on the Thy-Hanstholm circuit, the 2009 CIK-FIA Viking Trophy will go down in the history of Karting. Even more than the domination of local drivers, who won in each of the three categories in competition, it is the incredible performance achieved in KF2 by Kevin Munkholm (Birel-Parilla) that warrants admiration: starting from the last row because he had retired even before the start of the Prefinal, Munkholm made an extraordinary achievement as he managed to win the Final! In view of his performance in practice and the qualifying heats (pole-position in practice and victory in each of his heats), the son of Gert Munkholm (Karting World Champion in 1989) really deserved to win. 27th on the starting grid of the Final, he was already 12th at the end of the first lap and then devoted himself to catching up progressively with the leaders, without even owing his progression to the retirement of any of the drivers preceding him. And four laps before the finish he dislodged from first place his compatriot Patrick Hansen (Birel-Parilla). In the final classification, five Danes are in the top five, Munkholm and Hansen being followed by Nicolaj Moller Madsen (Energy-TM), Jacob Nortoft (CRG-Vortex) and Jonas Hansen (Maranello-Vortex). The first non-Dane, the Russian Maxim Zimin (FA Kart-Vortex), finished sixth ahead of Lars Sorensen (Birel-Parilla) and the young Norwegian girl Ayla Agren (FA Kart-Vortex), who had already distinguished herself by achieving a fine second place in qualifying practice.

In KF3, the Juniors’ tendency for rushing often made the first corner very dangerous, so much so that the hierarchy of practice was drastically changed and the fastest three drivers in the time-trial (the Swede Malja, the Russian Sirotkin and the Norwegian Olsen) ended up relegated beyond the 20th place after the qualifying series. In the Final, Denmark’s Andreas S. Hansen (Intrepid-TM) prevailed over his fellow countryman Kean Kristensen (CRG-TM) and the Russians Sergei Sirotkin and Stepan Karasev (Tony-Vortex).

In KZ2, the Norwegian Kenneth Ostvold (Energy-TM) successively dominated timed practice, the qualifying heats and the Prefinal. In the Final, however, victory went to the Dane Andreas Fasberg (AM-Maxter), ahead of the same Ostvold and Finland’s Leopold Ringbom (Gillard-SGM). As well as the presence of three drivers of different nationalities and three engine makes on the podium, it was interesting to see that the top twelve places were divided up into as many different chassis makes, the AM chassis (named after the initials of Alessandro Manetti) landing its first international win, ahead of an Energy, a Gillard, a Sodi, a Tony, a GP, a Maranello, a First, an Intrepid, a Swiss Hutless, a Zanardi and a Maddox: variety indeed ruled in the gearbox kart category!

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