The fourth round of the KF1 World Championship at Sarno boasted its usual surprises and loads of suspense. Winner of the two Races on Saturday, Nyck De Vries (Zanardi-Parilla) appeared to be going out for a perfect weekend having clinched another pole position on Sunday morning. However, this time around the Dutchman missed his start and only came through the first bend in 6th place. Having climbed back into 3rd spot after three laps, he was then let down by his engine and had to throw in the towel. Flavio Camponeschi (Tony Kart-Vortex) could not have asked for more. Having got the better of the Pole Karol Basz (RK-BMB), he took off for his second win of the season. Taking the chequered flag in second place, Felice Tiene (CRG-Maxter) was excluded after the race for a technical non-conformity, which allowed Ignazio D’Agosto (Tony Kart-Vortex) to score the points of second place ahead of the Belgian Sébastien Bailly (Kosmic-Vortex), with a good climb up through the pack from 15 th place of the grid, with Zdenek Groman (Kosmic-Vortex), Libor Toman (Birel-BMB) and Alex Albon (Intrepid-TM), not being able to take full advantage of De Vries’ retirement.
The fourth and final Race at the foot of the Vesuvius was an entirely different scenario with a highly inspired Alex Albon at the start who appeared to be going off towards victory. But this was without counting on Flavio Camponeschi, in top form in front of his home crowd. Slowly reducing the gap with the Brit, the Italian grabbed the lead some four laps from the finish. And this whilst Karol Basz managed to claim the last tread of the podium ahead of the Czech Zdenek Groman. Further back there was an excellent battle for 5 th place between the Japanese driver Yu Kanamaru (Tony Kart-Vortex), Nyck De Vries, back up from 17 th place, Sébastien Bailly, the Frenchman Léo Roussel (Sodi-Parilla) and Ignazio D’Agosto. After some brilliant racing these five drivers crossed the line in the same order and all within the same second. Nyck de Vries limited the damage for the championship thanks to points scored with this 6 th place. Better than that, he has increased his lead over Alex Albon to 30 points prior to the final in Suzuka, scheduled for the 11th through to 13 th November next.
Under all reserve however: De Vries, winner of nine races out of the 16 held up until now, could lose his 25 points scored for his victory in Race 2 held at Genk (he had been excluded as the result of coming into contact with Flavio Camponeschi). The appeal put in by his rival will be judged on Thursday 27 th October by the International Court of Appeal. Notwithstanding his 50 points backlog in the provisional rankings, Flavio Camponeschi could well still also claim the title in Japan in the event that De Vries and Albon experience a bad weekend. |
