Published on Sunday, April 21, 2024

Jenner equals all time round win, Fife marches on in the Australian Kart Championship

Brad Jenner has equalled the all-time round winner’s list in the SP Tools Australian Kart Championship presented by Castrol by taking out the X30 class on Sunday at Seymour’s Eastern Lions Kart Club; while Joshua Fife extended his KZ2 Championship lead through a dominant round win. Jenner secured his 12th total round victory, joining Troy Loeskow at the top of the all-time list.

It was a weekend without peer for the Victorian – who drives for Nick Percat’s JND Racing squad – winning each race he entered, extending his Championship lead. Defending Australian Champion, Jace Matthews finished second with Mika Lemasurier mounting a series comeback, finishing third after winning KA3 Senior.

Fife – who entered the weekend leading the GoPro-supported KZ2 category – extended his margin, winning all but one heat race – and took the final by 2.368 seconds in his Kart Republic. In the 25-lap affair, qualifying pole-sitter Dylan Guest slotted his BirelART in behind Fife on the first lap – and despite the best efforts of Flatout Karts’ Australian Champion, Sam Dicker to get by his fellow West Aussie, Guest was able to remain in second, while Dicker was unable to remount the challenge. New Zealander, Nathan Crang had his best finish in the AKC finishing in fourth.

Joshua Fife crossing the line for victory at Round Two of the 2024 SP Tools Australian Kart Championship presented by Castrol

In KA2 Junior, Lewis Cordato continued his good run from Saturday taking the win after an enthralling final. Round one winner, Kobe McInerney threw the challenge to Cordato and headed his fellow Sydneysider for a period in the final, however was unable to hold on at the back end of the race and crossed the line in second for TF Racing. The other combatant in the final battle was Isaac McNeill – who also spent time in the lead, but kept his Championship hopes alive with the third-placed finish.

Earlier in the day, Lemasurier started his Sunday afternoon off with a solid win in the KA3 Senior final on debut. It was an experiment for the BirelART Australia team to rebuild confidence in the Gold Coast youngster and it appeared to work as he skipped to a 1.1 second win. He got to the line in front of fellow Queenslander, Dominic Penman from CX-R Racing and Victorian Arrow driver, William Thompson. Perennial Championship front-runner, Benito Montalbano had to fight hard to work his way through the field to ultimately claim a fourth placed finish.

South Australian JND Racing KA3 Junior driver, Riley Harrison usurped his team-mate and Championship leader, Jack Szewczuk to lead home a South Australian and FA Kart quinella in front of Empire Kartsport’s Isaac McNeill scoring a double podium. It was one of the closest KA3 Junior finals in some time, at one point with up to 12 drivers in the front-running fight.

Szewczuk had been on top during Saturday’s heat races and was in the mix battling with the group – dropping as low as sixth at one point. He fought back through and got himself into the top group and pushed through to finish second. Sam March, Jye Flynn and Championship leader leading into the weekend, Noah Enright were among potential winners in the fight that saw the top five covered by less than seven-tenths of a second.

Another South Australian double podium came in TaG 125 as Jacob Dowson took victory by three-tenths of a second. Returning to the family-run MFK Racing outfit this year and making a switch to Arrow chassis is proving a great choice for Dowson – who emerged yesterday as a front-runner. He took the win after a race-long fight with defending Australian Champion, Harrison Hoey, who brought the Australia #1 home in second position and round one winner, Ben Holliday – the other South Australian in the front-running battle who came home in third, holding off a late race charge from Jackson Souslin-Harlow.

Jay Kostecki used all of the Supercars racing DNA from his brothers and cousin to hold off a snarling pack in the Cadet 12 final. Multiple drivers took turns at the front of the field, however it was Kostecki who got to the lead and held on from Championship leader and dominant force from the weekend, Archie Bristow.

Kostecki getting by Michael Quintiliani saw EKS’ Alaster Flack try to take advantage. Unfortunately, Flack locked wheels with Queenslander Quintiliani and unfortunately for the latter, he spun out of contention, Flack dropping to fifth. This promoted Roman Krutil to third position.

In Cadet 9, trouble struck before drivers got to the start line in the final. Championship fighter, Oliver Williamson’s kart expired on the roll-around lap, forcing the youngster to sit aside the racetrack and watch on as a battle formed between Jarvis Hindle and Oliver Armitt.

Armitt was able to get through on Jarvis Hindle to cross the line first by just 0.056 seconds, however, a post-race bodywork infringement dropped the Championship leader two places to third. It elevated Hindle to the win over Lukas Loeskow, meantime Lex Kelly, the son of Supercars Champion, Rick grabbed his best AKC finish after a challenging weekend in fourth.

The SP Tools Australian Kart Championship presented by Castrol takes a break until the final weekend in May when it heads to Central Queensland to race at Emerald Kart Club. The Series has the honour of debuting the exciting track’s new world-class lighting system and will race on Friday and Saturday nights.

Full results from this weekend’s events are available here. Championship points are available here.