Fans spoiled for World Final Choice
Paper Rock Scissors! You know the game, but it may as well be Max Rok Scissors in two weeks time!
Two strong South African teams head to Italy for two World Karting Finals in the respective Rotax Max and Vortex Rok world championships over the same weekend 20-23 October 2016. The Rok World Finals happen at the South Garda Karting Track and South Africa has a very strong team headed to the track on the playground Lake Garda in Lonato near Brescia in Northern Italy.
The biggest SA contingent comprising mainly Gauteng kids will fly the flag in the primary school 60cc Mini Rok class, where SA champion Josh Coertze, runner up Kwanda Mokoena and SA championship frontrunners, Cape Town lad Charl Michael Visser, Saood Variyawa, Leyton Fourie, Daniele Patrizi and Joseph Ellerine will compete alongside Mozambican driver Almeida from Moz in a 171 kart field that includes the likes of F1 drivers’ offspring including Italians Brando Badoer and Enzo Trulli, Emmo Fittipaldi and Fernando Barrichello from Brazil and Sebastian Montoya from Colombia.
Another strong SA contingent heads for the high school Junior Rok 125cc class where Cape Town’s Jason Coetzee, Stewie White from Bloemfontein, Mozambican siblings Karl & Naomi Pitzer and Jozi lad Jordan North will fight it out among 90 entries including an Italian by the name of Matteo Nannini an Aussie called Jack Doohan and another Brazilian called Eduardo Barrichello.
Only one SA driver will race in Senior Rok with Cape kid Dino Stermin facing off against 61 karts in that class. Other classes on the program include Super and Shifter Rok, which sees entries for Rubens Barrichello and Ikkei Kobayashi are both entered there. The Rok World Finals are open to competitors who have proven themselves in national series around the world and karts are run by independent teams and tuners.
The Max finals on the other hand cater for drivers who have won or ended in the top three of their respective national series with drivers racing identical karts powered by specification-controlled supplied by the organisers in each class Running in tandem over the same weekend as the Rok Finals, the Rotax Max World Finals return to the La Conca track in Napoli in the south of Italy, where an equally adept SA squad will be on duty. Rotax Max drivers must qualify for their World Final seats, a process which met with several hiccups in setting the SA team this year.
There were no such troubles in the Mini and Micro Max, where SA champions Joshua De Paiva and Jayden Els head to Naples to take up their rightful seats, but both DD2 champions, overall winner Bradley Liebenberg and Masters champion Michael Stephen are victims of another date clash with the main circuit nationals at the opening meeting of the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit where Liebenberg is leading the Engen VW Polo Cup championship and Stephen heads the Sasol GTC Africa title chase.
Still, a strong SA squad heads to fight for DD2 honours including SA karting heroine and double African champion Fabienne Lanz, Justin Allison, another South African karting lass, Ivana Cetinich, Eugene Brittz and Luca Munaretto, while Nicholas Verheul, Jonathan Pieterse and Richard Fuller will represent SA in DD2 Masters.
The route to the Junior and Senior Max World Finals was a little more complicated and clouded by courtroom wrangling, but Cameron O’Connor will in the end fly the flag in the high school 125cc Junior class and Delon Thompson in the slightly quicker open Senior class.
Race fans will be spoiled for choice over that late-October weekend with both karting Finals, Kyalami and a broad choice of other international racing on offer. Follow both the Max and Rok action live via streaming and timing on http://www.rotax-kart.com and/or http://www.vortex-rok.com/ from Tuesday 18 October.
ENDSIssued on behalf of Race News
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