James Wharton qualified outside the top ten at LaConca overnight, but was able to move forward and take a second place finish in the opening heat of WSK Super Master Series round 3.
The Australian qualified his Ricky Flynn Motorsport FA Kart/Vortex 12th in the 66-kart OK-Junior field, 0.314s off pole (Arvid Lindblad, Forza Racing-Exprit/TM).
“A challenging circuit and I extracted everything I could out of today” James posted on social media.
“We lacking a few tenths as far as outright speed. Qualifying saw me outside the top 10 but I climbed up to 2nd in heat 1. We will look at the data and make some changes for tomorrow.”
- Results are HERE (includes links to the live timing and Sunday night’s live stream)
WSK press
The challenge for the victory in WSK Super Master Series is on at Muro Leccese with 182 drivers present from 35 different countries covering the 5 Continents. The first indications came from qualifying practice and initial heats that will be completed tomorrow.
Dexter Patterson pushing hard in OK
Dexter Patterson ended the day on a high in OK: after posting the quickest time in qualifying practice in 45”291s, the Scot won, in fact, the first heat. The British driver Taylor Barnard (both on KR-Iame-Bridgestone) is second and put his name, alongside Patterson’s, forward to the final win. This was a good start for Patterson who is chasing classification leader Lorenzo Travisanutto (KR-Iame), as the latter was only 19th in qualifying. The Finn Juho Valtanen (Kosmic-Iame) has also been shining and claimed victory in the second heat.
Arvid Lindblad trying to bounce back in OK Junior
The British driver Arvid Lindblad (Exprit-TM-Vega, above) was the quickest of OK Junior in 46”499s and is quite resolute to bounce back in the provisional standings that currently sees him 10th. Behind him, classification leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli (KR-Iame) won the final heat of the day. Antonelli has to watch out for his main classification rival, the Dutch Thomas Ten Brinke, who is second in the ranking and won the second heat.
Coskun Irfan climbing up 60 Mini’s ranking
The British driver Coskun Irfan (Parolin-TM-Vega, above) also started to recover places in the classification and posted the quickest time in 60 Mini in 52”377s. Home hero Matteo Bagnardi (Intrepid-TM) from Ostuni (BR) also had a strong day and closed his effort in second place. Classification leader Rashid Al Dhaheri did not sit idly though and won one of the three heats run today, while the others went to the Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov and to the Brit Wiliam MacIntyre (all on Parolin-TM).