World Championship Bahrain, testing has started

Now all the drivers have learned the track at Bahrain during 3 sessions non-qualifying practice on Thursday evening. To talk numbers, there is a slight drop in entries for this long haul destination compared with Angerville with 7 absent in Academy and 15 in U18, which is very reasonable for the last race of the season. There are 56 in U18 and 37 Academicians.

Performance has consistently improved over the three successive sessions. As the mechanics worked to improve the performance of the equipment, the track conditions may also contributed to the decrease in times, the temperature dropped steadily since sunset.

In the Academy Trophy the Australian James Abela consistently topped the sessions including the the best time in the class of 56” 232, while UAE driver Thomas Bale also dominated the other group to end the day within 4/100 of Abela. However, the French and British Erwan Julé and George Russell were interspersed with the second and third best time of the day. Other drivers were distinguished: the Dutch Martijn Van Leewen, the Russian Alexander Maslennikov, Portuguese and German Bruno Oliveira and Christopher Dreyspring.

In U18, the odd group was always much faster than the even group, but this time, the difference in time could not explain everything. Finally, the Dutch Joel Affolter (Intrepid) set the fastest time with 55” 661 ahead of the Australian Joseph Mawson (Top Kart), Matthew Graham (Zanardi) back to his best and Henry Easthope (Sodi) making steady improvements . In the other group, Switzerland’s Randy Berglas (Mach 1) was on 56” 005 in front of the Australian Jacob Parsons (Top Kart), Briton Ricky Collard (ART GP), the Swiss Severin Amweg (ART GP) and French Hubert Petit (Sodi). Anthoine Hubert (Formula K) also went well and was within a few hundredths of Charles Leclerc (ART GP).

Friday will be different with the non-qualifying practice, then the official qualifying at midday under high temperatures.

Info Kartcom with Kartlink / © Photos KSP