Preview: CIK/FIA U18 World Championship Finale
from CIK-FIA
The CIK-FIA “U18” World Championship will bring in its verdict this first November weekend on the circuit of Sarno, near Naples.
As participants will have identical engines – supplied on a free basis further to a lottery by the FIM company – the CIK-FIA “U18” World Championship guarantees that they all have the same winning opportunities. And as a matter of fact it is not pure hazard that several of them can still claim the world crown of Drivers under 18 years old on the Sarno circuit in a final scheduled for 4 to 6 November. Unless there is an incredible reversal of situation, three Drivers should fight for this highly coveted title.
On the smallest step of the podium at Ortona’s opening event, the Finn Pyry Ovaska (Maranello) also shone in the French stage of Essay where he finished the Final in second place. Although he has not yet won, he will therefore start the last round of this exciting season as leader. 16 year-old Pyry is determined to show to his opponents that he also belongs to the “Flying Finns” lineage, a qualifier initially given to Finnish rallymen but that Kimi Räikkönen and others also “exported” to circuits.
Against Maranello Team’s Finish Driver we shall logically find the winners of the first two meetings. Laureate in Italy, young Matthew Graham (Zanardi) also demonstrated how fast he was. Thanks to his third place in Normandy this 15 year-old Briton retains every chances of eventually prevailing. He will however have to prove fast right from the beginning of the weekend because it was in the Qualifying Heats (in which Championship points are already allocated) that he lost ground to the competition leader.
Finally, the third man in this title chase should be France’s Anthoine Hubert. Having celebrated his 15th birthday last September, the works Sodikart’s protégé is the youngest candidate to the crown. Runner-up last year in the CIK-FIA Academy Trophy where he represented his country, Anthoine wants to repeat his Essay victory and thus chance his luck until the end. However, with a personal tally of 95 points (compared to 136 for Ovaska and 107 for Graham), he is aware that he will not be the sole master of his fate.
As there is still a maximum of 75 points to be allocated (25 after the Qualifying Heats and 50 in the Final) every top 10 Driver is mathematically in for the title fight. The Dutchman Dave Blom (Intrepid, 88 points), the Briton Henry G. Easthope (Sodi, 86), Finland’s Tomi Katajamäki (Maranello, 77), Austria’s Stephan Riener (Intrepid, 75), the German Lucas Speck (Mach 1, 71), the Spaniard Toni Alarcón (Righetti Ridolfi, 68) and the very fast – but so far also very unlucky – Italian Antonio Maria Giovinazzi (PCR, 67) can therefore still dream of succeeding Jake Dennis, champion in 2010, should the leading Drivers have a catastrophic weekend.
Faithful to the Championship, the Australian Aidan Wright (Zanardi) will again travel across the world to participate in this last race. Winner of the last round of the Australian KF1 Championship a few days ago, Aidan is still hoping to reach the aim he has set for himself, namely finishing his maiden World Championship in the top 10.
It is also worth noting that this U18 World Championship formula is appealing to more and more Drivers and, in fact, three further new-comers will try their hand at that world competition in Sarno: the Frenchman Julien Carpentier (Sodi), the Italian Vincenzo Soriano (Parolin) and Switzerland’s Vincenzo Alvaro (Swiss-Hutless), recently crowned in his country’s “Sport 125” category.
- Results etc will be published on the CIK/FIA site HERE.
