Round 3 of the FIA Euro OK-OK Junior Series to take place in Slovakia
This weekend from Thursday 19th to Sunday 23rd June, the Slovakia Ring will be once again the center of international karting by hosting the 3rd Round of the FIA European OK and OK-Junior Championship. The track is new to the "direct drive" circus and the drivers discovered it only 15 days ago for the first time by taking part in the Champions of the Future, the Series organized by RGMMC, which acts as a prologue to the FIA races. There will certainly be no shortage of unknowns, as well as spectacle on the track, if the very close values in terms of performance between the protagonists fighting for the Championship will be confirmed.
CRG showed an excellent feeling with the official team on this circuit, confirming its competitiveness in both categories at the start, as in the first two races of the Championship. The most important news at CRG is the full physical recovery of Gabriel Gomez who, 15 days ago, raced with an injured hand in training and therefore was unable to express his usual performance standards. It is worth saying that the Brazilian is currently in P2 in the provisional Championship standings, just 13 points from the top and will certainly try to reduce this gap, in view of the decisive last round in July in Sweden.
Louis Iglesias, currently P5 in the Championship, is also expected to compete in a leading race in the official CRG team in the OK category. An excellent job preparing for this important race was also done by Guillaume Bouzar, Michael Ider, Santino Panetta, Markas Silkunas, Jakub Rajsky, Tom Dussol and Davide Bottaro, who completed the CRG team line-up in the top-class. We will need to keep an eye on Jindrich Pesl as well in the OK class, who will race on CRG chassis with the colors of the Serafini team.
In OK-Junior, however, there will be 4 official CRG drivers: François Kerdal, Asher Ochstein, Manu Miguez and Mats Van Rooijen.
The event program includes Free Practice on Thursday, Qualifying Practice and the first Heat on Friday, then Heats again on Saturday and the Super Heats and the Finals on Sunday. On the FIA Karting website, it will be possible to follow the event through the Live Timing and the Live Streaming from Friday on.
CRG drivers’ expectations:
Gabriel Gomez (OK): “The race 15 days ago was affected from a performance point of view by my hand injury, but now I feel almost 100% and this weekend will certainly be a different story. Despite the injury, it was useful to race the Champions of the Future here, because we were able to evaluate some setup solutions, both for the chassis and the engines. Obviously, it will be important to think about the Championship and score points in all phases of the event to get to Sweden and play our chances of victory. We have a very solid team in the OK category and the help of my teammates will also be very useful in these two decisive races of the Championship."
Asher Ochstein (OK - Junior): “In the Champions of the Future on this track, we demonstrated our speed and our potential throughout the weekend and only a mistake on my side in the Super Heat compromised what, at the moment, was the most solid race weekend since the start of the season. We have to start from there, from the excellent balance we had found and finally achieve a placing that the team deserves for all the work it is doing."