All the big names in the OK and OK-Junior classes of International Karting will be in Portugal this weekend for the 1st Round of the Champions of the Future, the four-round tournament that will serve as a prologue to the FIA European Championship. In fact, each of the 4 scheduled races will take place on the same track 15 days before the European Championship round and for drivers and teams, it will therefore be an event mainly dedicated to preparing the FIA races.
For all the teams and drivers competing it will be a weekend of intense technical work to define materials and set up and certainly the show won’t be missing, thanks to all the top drivers of the direct drive classes who will be there willing to stand out.
The Portimao racetrack was born a few hundred meters from the F1 and MotoGP one, in a modern sports complex and is among the fastest and most spectacular of the season, characterized by many gradients and very technical sections.
The CRG team will line-up 4 drivers in this meeting: the South African Nikolas Roos in the OK-Junior, while the Brazilian Gabriel Gomez, the Swedish Viktor Gustavsson and the Spaniard Adrian Malheiro will get on the track in OK.
The weekend program includes qualifying practice and the first heats on Friday, followed by the eliminatory heats on Saturday, with 21 races scheduled and then the last Super Heat and Finals on Sunday. From Thursday on the live timing will be active on the website of the series (www.championskarting.com) and from Saturday the images from the circuit will be broadcast live, again on the official website.
CRG drivers expectations:
Gabriel Gomez (OK): “Since the beginning of the season we have done an excellent job with the 2022 chassis and also as regards the engines we have defined a basic technical “package” that should allow us to be competitive. I really like this track and have good memories of the Junior World Championship that took place here in Portugal 2 years ago. I hope to have a good race, even if the main objective will be to prepare the European race scheduled in 15 days and in order to reach this goal we will necessarily have to try some technical solutions to collect useful data".
Nikolas Roos (OK-Junior): “I think the track is beautiful and it will also adapt well to the technical characteristics of our chassis. We have a busy schedule this weekend and it's good that we always expect good weather with spring temperatures. My goal is not to make mistakes in the qualifying heats, because in this type of races it is very difficult to recover positions and a good one would be the best way to prepare for the most important race that awaits us in 15 days. I didn't do many tests in the first months of the year and therefore I still have to refine the feeling with the technical materials for 2022 and with the team, but I am optimistic that I can do very well”.