The first round of the FIA European Championship for the OK and OK Junior categories is scheduled for this week on the Valencia circuit, in Spain. The Championship will be divided into 4 races which will include, after Spain, France, Slovakia and, finally, Sweden in August. After the preparation races held at the beginning of the season, from this week the competition on the track will be for one of the most prestigious titles of the year, second in importance only to the FIA World Championship. FIA Karting events can open the doors of professionalism to many ambitious young drivers and CRG boasts a list of dozens of Championships won at a continental level.
In the OK category, the official entry list includes 91 drivers, while in the Junior 106. In this first test in Valencia, the CRG Racing Team will line up 12 drivers in the top class, led by the Brazilian Gabriel Gomez who, after his 2nd place last season, is openly aiming for the title this year. The Brazilian confirmed himself to be very competitive 15 days ago in the Champions of the Future race on the same track, reaching the podium and is one of the most likely for doing well. It will also be worth keeping an eye on Louis Iglesias and Davide Bottaro with CRG colours as they were also very fast in the race 15 days ago, but the possibility of a notable result will be within the reach of many official CRG drivers. In OK Junior there will be 6 CRG Racing Team drivers competing and all of them have the potential to fight among the top 36, who will qualify for the Final. In the Champions of the Future preparation race, François Kerdal and Asher Ochstein achieved the best results and this weekend they will attack for their first points of the season.
From a technical point of view, it is worth saying that the CRG team in the OK category will use Iame engines managed by BM Motors, while in OK Junior it will use TM engines from Machac Motors. Both categories will use Maxxis tires for the first time in an FIA event, the "option" ones for the Junior category and the "prime" for the OK one. Tires were something unknown on the eve of the meeting, but from the first data collected they seem to have good basic quality and worthy performance for the event.
The race program will include Free Practice on Thursday, Qualifying Practice on Friday, when the first Heats will also take place, then the entire day dedicated to Heat on Saturday and Super Heat and Finals on Sunday.
CRG drivers' expectations:
Gabriel Gomez (OK): “The race 15 days ago gave us many useful technical indications, but the most important is that our chassis immediately mix in very well with the new Maxxis tires and the general balance we found seems very good, both with used tires and during the qualifying lap with new ones. The team's objective is obviously to try to make up for some of last year's bad luck and therefore we will get on the track to win with great determination. The season is long and some tracks are a bit of an unknown, because we haven't raced there for a long time, but I feel very good on this track and I will aim to score as many points as possible".
Asher Ochstein (OK Junior): “This weekend I will attend my first FIA race and the priority objective will be to go to the Final even if, with more than 100 drivers registered, nothing will be taken for granted. Obviously, I would also like to leave Spain with some points and I believe that if I don't make any mistakes, this objective will be achievable. We have repeatedly shown that we are fast and what we have to do now is finding more continuity in our performances so that the first positive results will arrive soon”.
CRG Drivers Line up:
OK Junior:
Oliver Rasmussen
François Kerdal
Marco Garst
Asher Ochstein
Manuel Miguez
Vanesa Silkunaite
OK:
Davide Bottaro
Santino Panetta
Michael Ider
Markas Silkunas
Guillaume Bouzar
Jacob Micallef
Jacub Rajski
Mark Dubnitski
Louis Iglesias
Gabriel Gomez
Tom Dussol
Ka Po Yu