High temperatures, a blue sky, and a dry track gave the participants of the FIA Karting European Championship ideal conditions entering the Qualifying Series that unfolded this Saturday afternoon on the Le Mans International Karting. Divided into series, the drivers of the OK class took to the French track from 17:30, each of the four groups spending about eight minutes against the time watch.

Kirill Smal (Tony Kart / Vortex) led the field in the opening minutes, making good use of what would eventually be the fastest track conditions of all four groups before his best performance (50.798 seconds) was canceled for no respect of the track limits. Second behind the Russian in 50.822 seconds, Kobe Pauwels (KR / IAME), therefore, inherited the leading spot and kept it until the end of the Qualifying Practice. This is the Belgian’s first Pole position in an FIA Karting Competition since Salbris 2018 for the opening round of the Academy Trophy and his first in the OK class.

Third fastest in the First Series, Dino Beganovic (Tony Kart / Vortex) also climbed up a rank to second overall ahead of Smal, followed by Gabriele Mini’ (Parolin / TM), Joseph Turney (Tony Kart / Vortex) and Luigi Coluccio (Birel ART / TM). All first six drivers will be starting ahead of their respective groups (from letter A to F) in the Qualifying Heats taking place this Saturday.

The rest of the Qualifying Top Ten was completed by the current series’ leader Dexter Patterson (KR/IAME) followed by Oliver Goethe (KR/IAME), Lorenzo Travisanutto (KR/IAME) and Sebastian Gravlund (KR / IAME).

Schedule

Saturday08:00 – 09:40 Warm-up
10:05 – 18:40 Qualifying Heats
14:00 – 14:45 Lunch Break
19:00 – 19:30 Press Conference
Sunday09:00 – 10:40 Warm-up
11:05 – 13:00 Qualifying Heats
13:55 – 14:40 Lunch Break

15:50 – 16:20 Final 
16:35 Press Conference

How to follow the event?

Like for every event in the FIA Karting calendar, The Racebox provides you with a special page featuring live timing and live streaming plus our daily reports and social publications to keep you up to date with the results and info from Le Mans!

Text: Guillaume Alvarez

Photos: Alex Vernardis