Ardigo's Asia-Pacific Championship

press release

Judging by the result of the 2008 edition of the Asia-Pacific KF1 Championship, the favourite of the 2009 World Championship to be held on the same Coloane-Macau circuit is already known. And in fact it does not come as a surprise: already crowned European and World Champion this year, the Italian Marco Ardigo (Tony Kart-Vortex) has added yet another line to his enviable list of results: having set the fastest lap time in practice and emerged as leader after the qualifying heats, Ardigo prevailed in the final, leading from flag to flag without ever being really challenged.

His rivals did nevertheless put up a creditable performance. Indeed, the Italian Sauro Cesetti (Birel-Parilla) carried off the prefinal and then was runner-up in the final. Setting the fastest lap time in the final, his Czech team-mate, Libor Toman (Birel-Parilla), finished fourth ahead of Jack Harvey (Birel-Parilla), impressive for his first participation in the top category. After a very good start, the young Briton held second place early in the final, before giving in to Cesetti’s attacks. But whereas he seemed capable of marking his début in KF1 with a podium, a water leak in his radiator created overheat in his engine, of which Manuel Renaudie (Gillard-Parilla) and Toman Libor took advantage in the final lap.

Among other good performers, there was another beginner in KF1, Britain’s Robert Foster-Jones (FA Kart-Vortex), who started 19th and finished in a fine sixth place, ahead of experienced drivers such as Armand Convers (PCR-PCR), Alessandro Bressan (Kosmic-Vortex) and Davide Gaggianesi (FA Kart-Vortex). Achieving a very good third fastest practice time, the Japanese Katsuta Takamoto (Birel-Parilla) was forced to retire from the final. The best classified Asian driver in the final was the Malay Aaron Lim Say Joon (Birel- Parilla), tenth.

Juniors were also part of the show at Macau. Already entered in the 2007 edition, the Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr (FA Kart-Vortex) dominated the event. The son of the double World Rally Champion landed the final with a lead of over 5 seconds on the Italo-Russian Danil Kvyat (FA Kart-Vortex) and the Italian Vittorio Ghirelli (Tony Kart-Vortex). Fourth and setting the fastest time in the final, the German Lucas Wolf (Energy-VKR) finished ahead of the American-Swede Gustavo Menezes (Tony Kart-Vortex) and the Dutch lady Driver Beitske Visser (Kosmic-Vortex-D). Even though it did not really materialise with good results in the final, the non-Europeans who performed best were the Malay Bryan Mehta (Birel-XTR), third in practice, and the New Zealander Arie Hutton (Tony Kart-Vortex), fourth after the heats.

The dress rehearsal in which the Macau Organisers, the Drivers and the Teams took part
within the framework of this 2008 CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific Championship augurs well for a great
World Championship in 2009. It's date must carefully be noted: see you on 9-11 October 2009
at Coloane-Macau!

The results are available on the cikfia site HERE.

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