Hajek wins KZ World Championship
Patrik Hajek has been crowned the 2018 World karting champion in KZ after a blistering performance in Genk on Sunday.
It was first blood to SRP’s Fabian Federer who topped the time sheets ahead of Birel-ART’s Marjin Kremers with Hajek in 3rd. Qualifying would be tough for the CRG pairing of Pedro Hiltbrand and Paolo De Conto who were 15th & 17th respectively. Top Tonykart was Simo Puhakka in 4th while Sodi’s Anthony Abbasse rounded out the top 5. In all the top 6 drivers were all driving different brands of kart.
Hajek would take the advantage in the heats, taking 3 wins out of 3 to score pole for the final. Kremmers lined up 2nd by virtue of his 1 win and 2 2nds. Rick Dreezen put his KR kart in 3rd with Puhakka lining up alongside him. Abbasse and Federer held row 3. Further down the field Hiltbrand would grab a pair of 2nds, but a 12th in heat 1 would leave him P11 on the grid. De Conto failed to find the podium in any heat, leaving him 15th.
The final should have been called the Patrik Hajek show, taking a lights to flag victory controlling the gap to finish 1.7s clear of Dreezen. Fabian Federer brough his CRG SRP racing CRG home 3dd just ahead of Sodi’s Alex Irlando who just missed out on the podium. Contact on the first lap dropped Kremmers to the back of the field, and he was then handed a 10 second penalty for his front fairing, leaving him 20th in the end. De Conto had a mega recovery drive, running as high as 4th before Irlando managed to sneak through on the last lap to drop the defending champion down to 5th.
Hajek becomes the first Cezch driver to score the world championship and the 2nd driver to win for the Kosmic squad.
Image: CIK FIA
