Unsettled weather conditions made the KZ World Championship, held at Portimao in southern Portugal, extremely difficult. Qualifying was run on rain tyres that were particularly difficult to understand and use, and the KR Motorsport team were unable to get to the front of the field straight away. In the second half of the event, however, the team's performance on a dry track was clearly up to scratch, with Stan Pex, Danilo Albanese and Paolo Ippolito all making it into the top 10.
Heavy rain at the start of the competition
Held two weeks earlier in Portimao, the Champions of the Future Shifter had given the KR-IAME packages a great deal to look forward to, and they were particularly competitive in the dry Final. But during the week of the World Championship, the skies proved to be highly capricious, with a lot of rain, leading to incessant updates to the set-up.
The Qualifying rankings left KR Motorsport justifiably disappointed. The expected symbiosis between the drivers and their equipment did not develop as the technical staff had hoped. Stan Pex fared best, finishing 12th just ahead of Paolo Ippolito, but Danilo Albanese was frustrated by his 18th place. From then on, it was going to be a difficult race for the drivers defending the colours of the Italian factory on the Portimao circuit, which doesn't make overtaking easy in KZ, but there are no doubt other possible explanations...
Excellent lap times and significant comebacks
Pex, Ippolito and Albanese spared no effort to get back to the front of the pack. The Dutchman proved to be both inspired and efficient: P5 in the Super Heat, P7 on the grid for the Final and P4 under the chequered flag, before a drop to 7th position due to a five-second penalty. Forced to retire in Heat 2, Ippolito had to start from the back of the grid in Heat 3. Constantly having to chase lost time, he managed to secure his place in the top 10 in the Final. Just ahead of him in 9th position, Danilo Albanese gained 13 places. He set the fastest lap in the warm-up and was also 3rd fastest in the race. KR congratulates Jorrit Pex (SP Motorsport) on his 13th place.
In the other categories, Gianni Andrisani (TB Racing Team) finished 10th with his KR chassis in the KZ2 World Cup and Rasmus Haugard came 6th in KZ2 Master.
A comment from Dino Chiesa, Head of KR Global Motorsport Company
"Of course, it's not the result we were hoping for, even though we were very competitive on Sunday. As I said after the Champions of the Future, this is a World Championship where you have to qualify in the top places. Unfortunately, in the rain on Friday, we didn't achieve our objectives. The team worked hard to find excellent solutions to enable our drivers to move up, but the best positions were unfortunately out of reach.”