Highly-coveted Worlds Cups!

Alexander Albon KF3

Recently host of two World Championships (2000 and 2005), the International Circuit of Braga, in Northern Portugal, will welcome on 11 and 12 September the two flagship events of the year for the KZ1 and KF3 categories, namely the CIK-FIA World Cups.

With 84 entries and 26 nationalities represented, the list of KF3 Juniors looks very promising and will even gather more Drivers than in 2009. Many of them can aim at victory, with on the one hand Drivers who already enjoyed the taste of wins or of podiums at the beginning of the season and, on the other one, quite a few Drivers who are hungry for good results after a rather difficult season. The Sicilian Giuliano Maria Niceta is one of the latter: not qualified for the 2010 European Championship, Niceta will be very keen to renew with success exactly one year after his win in that same World Cup for KF3! On the track, he will again compete against his runners-up of 2009, France’s Pierre Gasly and Britain’s Jake Dennis, who both proved to be in fine form over the last few months: the Frenchman finished second in the CIK-FIA European KF3 Championship and is the provisional leader of the French Championship; as for the Briton Dennis, he is currently in the lead of the new CIK-FIA World Championship reserved for Drivers under 18 years old. Although all the Drivers with a chance of victory cannot be mentioned here, let us nonetheless name the Britons Alexander Albon (2010 CIK-FIA European Champion), Harrison Scott and Roy Johnson, the Finns Niklas Tiihonen, Ville Mäntylä and Mikko Pakari, the Dane Andreas Hansen, the Monaco competitor Charles Leclerc, Holland’s Max Verstappen and Peter Hoevenaars, the Frenchman Anthoine Hubert (current leader of the new CIK-FIA Academy Trophy), the Italian Damiano Fioravanti, the Austrian Lucas Auer and the Russian Egor Orudshev.

The field of the top category of gearbox karts, KZ1, will not be as rich as in 2009 but the competition nevertheless promises to be fierce. Official Sodi works Driver, the Frenchman Anthony Abbasse is one of the favourites – but will he not find himself too lonely against the armada of Drivers of the Intrepid team? The reigning double European Champion, the Dutchman Bas Lammers, who will be its spearhead, is aware that his team-mates, the Frenchman Jérémy Iglésias and the Belgian Yannick de Brabander, will not lose their chance. And neither will the big discovery of the year, the young female Driver Beitske Visser: whenever she competes, she does her utmost to tease her male fellow competitors in this KZ1 category which was often – mistakenly – reputed to be too virile for representatives of the fair sex! The very experienced Frenchmen Manuel Renaudie and Thomas Mich will be two additional serious protagonists, and so will the Briton Ben Hanley and the Italians Antonio Piccioni, Simone Brenna and Salvatore Gatto. It will also be worth watching Jorrit Pex (NLD), Jack Hawksworth (GBR), Simo Puhakka (FIN), Oliver Rowland (GBR), Viktor Öberg (SWE), Patrick Hajek (CZE), as well as Zdenek Groman (CZE), who will make his début in KZ1 at Braga.

The verdict will be announced in the afternoon of Sunday 12 September, both on the track and on your computer screen where you can follow the evolution of the Drivers in real time on www.cikfia.com !

Info CIK / © Photo KSP