Three major titles to be awarded

The entry lists for the Sarno event, near Napoli in Italy, cut a fine figure with no fewer than 199 drivers of different ages who hail from very varying backgrounds.

The World Cup of the top category of gearbox karts, KZ1 (the former Super ICC), will be held there. The importance of the event can be assessed according to the number of entries: they will be 50 at the start, i.e. 20 participants more than in the European Championship! The favourites will be no other than Francesco Laudato, Alessandro Manetti and Marco Ardigo. The first mentioned driver is the outgoing winner of this World Cup, which was held on the same Sarno circuit two years ago; the second one recently captured the title of European Champion of the category and the third one is indisputably the strongman of the 2007 season. Davide Fore, Alessandro Piccini (quadruple World Champion), Sauro Cesetti, Andrea Benedetti and Roberto Toninelli will answer present to match them. The sounding of their names and first names does not allow any doubt: they are all Italian. As far as foreign drivers are concerned, the strongest competition will probably come from the Belgian Jonathan Thonon as well as the Frenchmen Manuel Renaudie, Armand Convers and Arnaud Kozlinski.

The “second division” drivers of 125 cc gearbox karts, the KZ2 category, will confront each other for the third and last time of the season within the framework of their European Championship. The chase for the title should boil down to a fight between the Italian Michele Santolini, the Belgian Rick Dreezen, the Lithuanian Kazimieras Vasiliauskas as well as the Dutchmen Thomas Knopper and Danny Bleek.

The third category in contention at Sarno will be KF3, the class of the up-and-coming generation, namely 13 to 15 years old Juniors. To be eligible for this grand European final, the Juniors previously had to go through the regional qualifications simultaneously organised in July at Genk in Belgium, Essay in France and Sosnova in the Czech Republic. These qualifications had enabled Belgium’s Clemente Picariello to make himself conspicuous in the Northern Region event and to finish ahead of Finland’s Petri Suvanto. In the Western Region, the final podium had been monopolised by young British drivers in the order Jack Harvey, Tom Grice and Oliver Rowland. As for the Central Region, it had seen an Italian one-two with Matteo Beretta and Lorenzo Camplese.