CRG Team Report - Zuera, Spain

press release

The weekend of the CIK-FIA championships in Spain did not end as expected for CRG official team, both in the final round of the KF3 and KF2 European championships and in the second round of the KF1 world championship.

Unfortunately, after the good performances of the first racing day on Saturday, on Sunday an incredible series of unpredictable events made the Italian team think that there was a sort of spell on this Spanish appointment in Aragon.


Above: Laura Tillett leads Jordon Lennox, KF1

In the KF1 world championship, Felice Tiene gave CRG a double good result on Saturday thanks to his fifth and fourth place in the first two finals, while Max Verstappen - in the KF3 European championship - made everybody enthusiastic after achieving the front row for Sunday pre-final.

Well, right on the day on which everybody expected these results would be confirmed, it happened exactly what should have never happened.

In particular, Verstappen was very unlucky in the pre-final: he was pushed off track at the hairpin bend, just immediately after the start. The talented Dutch driver, anyway, managed to recover as far as the sixteenth place after starting from the last position. For the final, the whole team still believed in a possible recovery:  on the contrary, another collision at the start and an off track excursion gave Max the fatal blow and made it impossible even thinking of getting onto the podium.

So, Verstappen ended up fourteenth in the final, on the day in which he stood more than a chance of getting on the highest step of the podium and eventually winning the European title that had already slipped off his hands last year.


Above: KF3 driver Jinya Yamakawa

Regarding the KF1 world championship, the two Sunday finals of this second round saw Laura Tillett achieving an excellent result. She managed to build up a very good performance thanks to her eleventh place in the first of the two finals, with Felice Tiene sixteenth. On the other hand, Tiene was more forceful in the second final with his fourteenth position followed by Tillett's seventeenth place.

On the contrary, this Spanish race will be something that the English driver Jordon Lennox-Lamb will not miss: he was forced to retire in both the finals after two accidents.

Also the leader of the KF1 category - the top ranked driver Nick De Vries - on Zanardi had a series of troubles at the start. He was severely penalized and forced to try "impossible" recoveries from the last positions. Eventually, the tiny Dutch driver placed seventh in the first of the two finals and got on the podium in the second, after recovering as well as he did on Saturday.


Above: Verstappen, KF3

In the B final of the KF3, the tiny Japanese CRG driver Jinya Yamakawa behaved well and placed fourteenth, while in the other B final of the KF2 Giovanni Martinez placed fifteenth. The KF3 European title went to the English George Russel; in KF2 to the Belgian Luca Sami, after the Irish driver Tanart Sathienthirakul was given a ten second penalty for excessive speed at the start. The KF2 podium was completed by the Spanish Carlos Gil and the Danish Andreas Sebastian Hansen on Maranello-Maranello.

The two KF1 Sunday finals were won by the Japanese Yu Kanamaru and the English Alexander Albon respectively.

The next big event of the great international karting is due next week, with the fourth and last round of the WSK Euro series, always on the international circuit of Zuera, where CRG is ready and all set to redeem itself.

Giancarlo Tinini, CRG SpA chairman: “Unfortunately our final performance turned out to be not as good as we expected. In KF1 the times on the single lap were not bad, but were not as terrific as those of Saturday, when we saw Tiene leading the race. We need to understand why we took this step backward between the two races on Saturday and on Sunday. Anyway, Tillet's performance was good and she was fast also in the two Sunday finals. It was her best race this year, even though she needs to be more aggressive, especially in the first laps. In the KF3 European championship, Max Verstappen had a bit of bad luck both at the start of the pre-final and in the final, otherwise I do think he could have won the title. On Saturday everything went smooth, today everything went topsy-turvy. Unfortunately you can't beat bad luck and in these cases you can't achieve anything good. In KF3 Yamakawa is growing fast, but he hasn't raced enough in Europe yet and he still needs more experience, as well as the French Nicolas Gonzales in KF2. The WSK Euro series is next: we'll have a go!”

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