The weekend of the 2nd Round of the FIA European Championship has ended with a positive 5th place for Gabriel Gomez and 10th place for Adrian Malheiro in the OK category for the CRG Racing Team. A positive result that confirms the competitiveness of CRG 2022 chassis and the excellent work that the drivers and the racing department of the company are doing. The chassis used by all CRG drivers competing in this event reserved for the direct-drive OK and OK-Junior categories was the KT2 model, which proved to be versatile and fast, both in the OK class with "prime" MG tires, and in the Junior with VEGA “option” tires. After the first races at the beginning of the year, in fact, the CRG Racing Team has concentrated its job on the KT2 chassis with 30mm tubes in the same configuration as the standard one sold for the National Championships and this work is also paying off from a commercial point of view, as the market is rewarding this chassis capable of guaranteeing excellent performance with all types of tires and on tracks of different configurations.
For what concerns the balance of the Spanish weekend, Olin Galli and Viktor Gustafsson were lacking a bit in the OK category; their weekend was already complicated starting from qualifying, where they didn't find a good lap. On the other hand, Gabriel Gomez was very effective in qualifying, fastest in his group and 2nd in the general standings. The Brazilian continued with excellent performances also in the qualifying heats, where he obtained two wins and a P3 in the Super Heat. He had a top-three pace also for more than half the race in the Final, but in the end, he dropped slightly in performance, finishing in P5. Spaniard Adrian Malheiro also had a great weekend in his home race, ended in P5 in the Super Heat on Sunday morning and then a nice P10 and the first points in the Championship in the Final. On the other hand, it was a Final to forget for Gustafsson, who also suffered a 10" penalty for a race contact, while Galli, despite a race contact, recovered 9 positions, finishing in P17. The OK-Junior drivers were also very fast over the weekend, but equally unlucky. In particular, Nikolas Roos was unable to finish his lap in qualifying and as he started back in the heats, despite an excellent speed, he barely missed the qualification for the Final. Same fate for Francisco Macedo, penalized by a contact in the Super Heat after he had done very well in the qualifying heats on Saturday, finishing several times in the top 10. Now the FIA European Championship will stop in Sweden for the 3rd Round on the weekend of June, 5.
CRG drivers’ post-race reactions
Gabriel Gomez (OK): “I'm very happy because we were fast all weekend, both with the new tires in qualifying and in the Final, as well as in the eliminatory heats. I set the fastest time in my group in qualifying and won two heats - a great result. I was also fighting for the podium in the Final, but in the second part of the race I had a small drop and I preferred not to force to finish in the top 5. We are working on small set-up details and we are showing our potential. Now we are ready for the podium, but above all to have results with continuity on every kind of track”.
Nikolas Roos (OK-Junior): “Unfortunately, the qualifying practice took place on just one lap and the traffic didn't allow me to finish my best lap. Starting at the back of the grid in this type of meeting with such a high level of drivers and teams is very complicated. Despite this, we confirmed that the chassis works very well and my pace in all heats has always been good. I am disappointed with the result, but also happy with the excellent level of our performances and with what we could achieve in the next races”.