Known for its special attention to young drivers, the Maranello team has remained faithful to its tradition also at the first major international event of the 2009 season. On the La Conca track, on 8 February, promising Aaro Vainio and Zdenek Groman defied the best drivers in Super KF and got within a hair’s breadth of making an exploit in their first race in the top category. The WSK opening meeting has already shown that this year Maranello and its newly homologated chassis are really competitive.
When he was still a KF3 driver, in 2008, Aaro Vainio felt totally at ease when the time came to fight for the Super Pole in the very difficult Super KF category. “At this level, you cannot improvise. Your equipment must be at the top and I must say that I was really impressed by the performances of my Maranello-Maxter”, said the Finnish driver. “I tried to avoid mistakes and I set the second best
absolute time!”
Always in the leading ground in the qualifying heats, Vainio was not the only successful Maranello driver; indeed, Czech driver Zdenek Groman showed an impressive progression in the ranking. In the long, 40 km final, he was the most enterprising and fought a fantastic battle for victory against the Cesetti-Kozlinski duo. “For this race, I chose to use the very innovative RS8 chassis, which has proven to be particularly competitive despite the fact that it is still in an early phase of development. I am really happy for this exceptionally
good debut in Super KF”, said Zdenek. Unfortunately, bad luck struck and Vainio and Groman were forced to abandon the race. Regularity allowed Mark Litchfield and his Maranello to reach the 11th place, just ahead of Tereza Gromanova, Zdenek’s sister.
In the KF3 pre-final, a Maranello chassis was in the place of honour thanks to a spotless performance by Mikko Pakari. Solidly in the leading pack, Mikko had to face disappointment on Sunday afternoon. “The team had prepared some top quality equipment and I felt I could fight for a podium”, the Finnish driver regretted.
After finishing the qualifying heats in the top 3, Portuguese Francisco Abreu staged a superb recovery (20 places) in the final. The team driver Ennio Gandolfi fully exploited the qualities of his Maranello-TM. Very fast during the collective tests held the previous weekend, Max Goff fulfilled his ambitions in KF2 and was three times in the top 10 during the qualifying heats. Unfortunately the final
phase turned into a catastrophe for the British driver, who already feels thirst for revenge.
Team and Equipment in Top Shape.
Comments by Armando Filini, in charge of Maranello Team:
“Luck was definitely not on our side at the WSK opening round in La Conca. A real pity, because our newly CIK homologated chassis have constantly shown their speed. With such competitiveness, I feel that the Maranello team drivers will have every opportunity to take their revenge in 2009. Anyway, my compliments to young Vainio and Groman! Not many people expected to see them in the Super KF leading pack so early. They perfectly exploited the equipment potential”. |
