KZ2 Prefinals: Vasile and Albanese victorious

Conditions were excellent at Franciacorta for the WSK Super Master Series KZ2 Prefinals, with sunshine and 11°.

Prefinal A: Vasile wins
Tom Leuillet (Tony Kart/Vortex) narrowly held on to 1st place at the start against Daniel Vasile (Birel ART/TM). Maksim Orlov (Parolin/TM) snuck into 3rd place ahead of Cristian Bertuca (Birel ART/TM), while Senna van Walstijn (Sodi/TM) was ahead of Matthéo Spirgel (Sodi/TM). Vasile managed to overtake Leuillet on lap 3, while van Walstijn and Spirgel overtook Bertuca. Pedro Hiltbrand (Birel ART/TM) moved up to 7th, Marijn Kremers (Tony Kart/Vortex) 8th and Matteo Vigano (Birel ART/TM) 9th ahead of Arthur Carbonnel (CRG/TM). At the halfway point, Orlov was trailing leader Vasile by 4 tenths, with van Walstijn in his wake. Téo Blin (Tony Kart/Vortex) had moved up from 8th to 12th. The battle was heating up between the top three. Vasile had to defend his 1st position. Leuillet took advantage to close the gap. Orlov lost time protecting his 2nd place against van Walstijn. Vasile won more comfortably, 9 tenths ahead of Orlov and van Walstijn. Leuillet finished 4th at 9 hundredths and Hiltbrand 5th at 77 thousandths. Spirgel was 6th on the track before being penalised 13th (Spoiler), Bertuca 6th, Kremers 7thVigano 8th and Carbonnel 9th. Blin finished 11th and Enzo Lacreuse (DR/Modena) remained 23rd. Giuseppe Palomba (Sodi/TM) and Kasper Schormans (Sodi/TM) failed to complete a lap.

Prefinal B: Albanese despite Gustafsson
Emilien Denner (Sodi/TM) started strongly, but went wide and crashed out 27th, while Danilo Albanese (KR/Iame) led ahead of Artem Severiukhin (Birel ART/TM) and Paolo de Conto (Parolin/TM). Viktor Gustafsson (CRG/TM) was 8th. De Conto then came home 2nd, 3 tenths behind Albanese. Markus Kajak (Maranello/TM) was 4th ahead of Jean Luyet (Birel ART/TM). Jérémy Iglesias (CRG/TM) made a good start to the race in 12th position (up eight places), while Denner climbed back into the top 20. At the halfway stage, Severiukhin was back to within 5 tenths of the leader Albanese, De Conto followed at 3 tenths, Gustafsson then moved up to 3rd ahead of Kajak and Severiukhin slowed down with technical problems and eventually retired. Gustafsson could prove a threat to Albanese. After making up 17 places, Denner retired on the 11th lap. Albanese defended his position on the final lap and narrowly beat Gustafsson by 2 hundredths. Kajak finished 3rd, with Andrea Dalé (CRG/TM) 4th ahead of De Conto. Iglesias finished 9th (+11 places), Celian Gallasin (CRG/TM) 12th (+15 places), Dorian Guldenfels (Birel ART/TM) 15th (+6 places) and Arthur Poulain (Sodi/TM) 19th with a spoiler penalty. 10 drivers failed to finish.

Info Kartcom with Kartlink / Photo © KSP – Arthur Saulnier-Bruneau