It was a tough weekend for the two Australian junior drivers contesting the opening round of the European Championship at Portimao, Portugal, on the weekend.
Griffin Peebles and Dante Vince both had a tough time in the 68-strong OKJ class, neither transferring to the final.
“Disastrous quali” is how Peebles described his P58 effort. Griff had moved up the ranking to 40th after the heats, so had a small chance of making the cut, however couldn’t muster enough points from the Super Heat to transfer.
Aussie Wrap
- Griffin Peebles (Koski Motorsport, Tony Kart/Vortex)
Q: 58. Heats: 8-15-17-15-13. Super Heat: 13. Ranking: 45. Final: DNQ - Dante Vinci (Shamick Europe, Parolin/TM)
Q: 46. Heats: 22-13-21-16-14. Super Heat: 21. Ranking: 53. Final: DNQ
“Italian” drivers (actually Russian karters racing under licences issued through Italy) once again topped the finals, Dmitry Matveev (Koski Motorsport) winning OK-Junior and Artem Severiukhin (Ward Racing) taking victory in OK. While both leave Portugal in the lead of their respective championships, time will tell whether Severiukhin’s result will hold (see separate story).
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At the time this post was published, FIA Karting had still not released an official Sunday race report or images from the event. We believe they also pulled the Sunday stream – which included the podium ceremonies – off its YouTube channel.
So, while there’s a lack of information coming from the FIA, there is a bit of a Finals Day report on the kartcom.com website – click HERE to have a read.
- Full results on the FIA Karting website HERE
Nine hours of video from Saturday’s live stream:
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