The weather was fine on Sunday afternoon, albeit slightly cloudy, with temperatures of 25° in Franciacorta for the OK Final of the fifth and final round of the Champions of the Future Euro Series.
Joe Turney (KR/Iame) once again took the questionable option of starting from the outside line. But this time he confirmed his choice by taking the lead ahead of Louis Iglesias (CRG/Iame) and Emanuele Olivieri (Birel ART/TM). Dmitry Matveev (KR/Iame) was 4th, but was overtaken by Alex Powell (KR/Iame) and Gabriel Gomez (CRG/Iame). Nathan Tye (Sodi/TM) stopped and retired. Gomez went wide and dropped from 3rd to 34th position. Olivieri was 4th, Kean Nakamura-Berta (KR/Iame) 5th and Enzo Tarnvanichkul (KR/Iame) 6th. Iglesias attempted an attack on Turney, but Powell took advantage and grabbed 1st position on lap 5. Iglesias was 3rd, 3 tenths behind Turney, but Nakamura was closing in. Jules Caranta (Tony Kart/Vortex) rejoined the top 10. Luviwe Sambudla (KR/Iame) had moved up 10 places to 6th. Nakamura was back in 4th, followed by Sambudla and Tarnvanichkul. Halfway through the race, Turney was back on Powell’s bumper. He came through on the inside on lap 15 and regained the lead. Nakamura tried to overtake Iglesias, who was defending his 3rd place effectively. Sambudla took advantage to move up to 4th ahead of Nakamura. Further back, Rene Lammers (Parolin/TM) continued to move up the field, passing Eliska Babickova (Exprit/TM) for 8th place. With two laps to go, Sambudla finally overtook Iglesias, who was forced to defend his position. Nakamura overtook him in the process. Turney won the race 6.5 tenths ahead of Powell. Sambudla took a remarkable 3rd place with a gain of 13 places. To ensure the KR quadruple, Nakamura finished 4th ahead of Iglesias. Tarnvanichkul was 6th, Lammers 7th (+8 pl), Olivieri 8th, Eliska Babickova (Exprit/TM) 9th and Jan Pzyrowski (Tony Kart/Vortex) 10th.
Arthur Poulain (KR/Vortex) was 14th (+10 pl), while Caranta 19th had a difficult end to the race. Maxens Verbrugge (CRG/Iame) finished 28th, while Pacôme Weisenburger (Redspeed/Iame) and Guillaume Bouzar (Parolin/TM) retired.
It was a Prema Racing/Kart Republic hat-trick in the championship with Powell winning on his birthday ahead of Nakamura-Berta and Tarnvanichkul. Turney was 4th ahead of Gomez and Tomass Stolcermanis (Energy/TM). Przyrowski was 7th and Poulain 8th.
Provisional results pending publication of the final rankings.
Info Kartcom with Kartlink / Photo © KSP