Senior X30: MacDonald wins as Turney Completes Mega Recovery
The Senior X30 class had the largest fields with 90 drivers, with some extremely talented drivers.
The entry list included the likes of X30 World Champion Joe Turney, CIK Karting Academy Trophy winner Mari Boya and Lewis Gilbert who had a strong run at the world finals last year.
The star of qualifying though was Dean MacDonald, lapping 2 tenths faster than anyone else. Morgan Porter was 2nd fastest with Leevi Lintukanto 3rd, Daniel Macia was 4th with Joe Turney 5th. It was a strong performance for Sweden’s Mathilda Olsson who qualified 12th while Boya could only manage 28th. One shock was Joey Van Splunteren who couldn’t get a fast lap in and was dead last in 90th.
A total of 10 heats would take place on Saturday, with each driver racing in 4 of them. It was an even stronger run for Macdonald, who won heats 1, 3, 6 and 8. Some of those wins were stronger than others. Heat 1 was a 5 second win over Morgan Porter and Siim Leedmaa, while heat 3 was alot closer, just a 0.267s gap over Romain Leroux and Louie Westover. Leroux chased Macdonald home again in heat 6, this time with Lintukanto behind. While heat 8 Dean was chased home by team-mate Jordan Brown-Nutley who held off a charge from Leedmaa.
Heat 2 was a home win for Isidro Callejas Gomez, who only just held off Lintukanto who was chased home by his team-mate Matias Salonen. Lewis Gilbert sealed a 1 second win over Lintukanto in heat 4, with Nicolas Picot climbing 7 places to claim 3rd. Heat 5 was another home win, this time for Daniel Macia ahead of the KR-Sport duo of Filip Vava and Eduardo Coseteng. Joe Turney won heat 7 ahead of Morgan Porter and Alejandro Lahoz Lopez. Gilbert got a second heat win at heat 9, Lintukanto again finished 2nd with Ayrton Fontecha in 3rd. The final heat saw Mathilda Olsson become the first female to win a race in a European X30 competition. She beat Jordan Brown-Nutley and Daniel Macia in 3rd.
After the heats Dean Macdonald topped the sheets with his 4 wins, Lintukanto’s consistency earned him 2nd on the grid wile Olsson’s win gave her 3rd. Leroux’s strong run saw him 4th while Leedmaa rounded out the top 5. Gilbert was down in 15th after a penalty in heat 6 dropping him to 27th. Boya was down in 24th after finishing just 1 heat inside the top 10. Joe Turney was down in the LCQ after DNF’s in heat 5 and 3. Van Splunteren managed to move up in each of his heats, but would still have to fight it out in the LCQ.
The LCQ went the way of Hannes Morin with Urbeltz Moar Maestro and Canny Carenini 3rd. Turney managed to scrape through in 4th, as did Van Splunteren in 5th. The last qualifier was Matias Zagazeta in 6th. The Pre-Final would see some big changes through the field. Just not at the front. Dean Macdonald took the win by ust over 2.7 seconds from Leedma. Ravenscroft was 3rd which dumped Lintukanto 4th. Turney had a mega drive to climb 27 places to 5th while Jordan Brown-Nutley gained 17 to finish 8th while Mari Boya gained 14 to finish 10th. Olsson dropped to 8th on track with a penalty dropping her further down to 16th. Leroux suffered a similar fate, ending down in 24th. Lewis Gilbert failed to finish and would start the final at the back.
It was a good start for Macdonald, who held the lead into the first corner, Ravenscroft dives through to second, Turney tried to push through into 3rd but couldn’t make the move stick, leaving him 5th. Leedmaa was running 3rd before going for the move quickly on Ravenscroft to take 2nd, but couldn’t hold it. The field then settled down into the long 17 lap race. One driver who was on the move was Mari Boya, who was up to 6th by lap 3.
Coming up to half distance, Ravenscroft challenged Leedmaa for 2nd, this time completing the move. Turney tried to follow his team-mate through, but Leedmaa was wise to it and slammed the door on him. Turney bided his time and made a clean move a few corner later. That allowed the chasing pack of Boya and Lintukanto to close in. The fight to watch was now the fight for 5th place. Westover, Porter, Brown-Nutley, Boya and Lintukantu were all battling hard and changing positions all the time. This allowed Van Splunteren to close in.
All the time Macdonald was building his gap ahead of the chasing KR-Sport drivers, now lead by Turney. Behind, Brown-Nutley managed to get to the front of the pack, but just a lap later, Porter dived to the inside of him while Boya dived passed the pair of them to claim 5th with Porter now 6th. The leading pair then started to build a gap as the 4 drivers behind fought over 7th place.
Despite everyone working together, nobody could get on terms with Dean Macdonald who claimed the win by 2.249 seconds ahead of Turney, who beat Ravenscroft in a drag race to the line. Leedmaa finished a solid 4th and Morgan Porter stole 5th on the line from Boya after a strong dual. Joey Van Splunteren managed to finish 7th after qualifying 90th. Nerea Marti ended as the leading lady after Mathilda Olsson picked up another 5 second penalty for her nose cone to finish 17th having been running in 14th.
Image: Iame Euro Series
