Travisanutto back on top in Genk
The second round of the CIK FIA European Championship rolled into Genk, Belgium. There were some big names, and some new names in the field, which would make for an interesting weekend.
Qualifying would be where the interest would start. A wet track would see the field shuffled around. Dexter Patterson, who had dominated the first meeting of the year, could only manage 12th fastest, with pole going to Birel-ART’s Luigi Coluccio with a 1:07.934. Second fastest was M-Sport’s Morgan Porter, over 3 seconds behind. Alessandro Irlando would make it 2 Birels in the top 3. It was a strong run for wild card Ben Dorr to qualify 9th. Other drivers suffered in the wet weather, Gabriele Mini was down in 43rd, Hannes Janker in 49th and Taylor Barnard in 50th.
The heats would see a return to the dry, despite that, it wasn’t clear who would be at the head of the field in the final. Having qualified 2nd, Pedro Hiltbrand managed to win a single heat, but his string of 2nd place finishes was enough to top the score sheets on Sunday. Lorenzo Travisanutto struggled in qualifying, but came back to win 2 heats, with the rest inside the top 6 to sit 2nd for the final. Porter looked strong in the early heat, but his final heat saw him drop to 11th, meaning he would start the final 3rd. Travisanutto’s team mate Nikolas Pirttilhati was 4th fastest, being the first driver not to win a heat.
Missing the cut was defending champion Hannes Janker, his first 2 heats were outside the top 20, despite a 9th, 5th and 3rd, Janker missed out on the final by 3 points. Another big name missing was Barnard, despite just running in the top 20 all weekend, it wasn’t enough for the young Brit, who ended up 47th overall. With some big names missing, it would be the turn of new faces to fight in the final.
The top 3 held position off the start, while Alessandro Irlando had slotted into to an early 4th. The whole field wouldn’t make it through the first corner, with Rasmus Kortelainen and Sami Meguetounif not making it back through. In the opening corners, Travisanutto was all over the rear of leader Hiltbrand and managed to muscle his way passed on the run to the final corner. That slowed Hiltbrand down, allowing Porter to take 2nd from the Brazilian. Dilano Vant’hoff was now in 4th ahead of Irlando and chasing down the CRG driver.
One driver making moves up the field was German Ben Door, the Mclaren driver was now running 11th having started 15th, after his impressive win in the heats it was clear he had the pace. At the front, Porter was starting to drop away from Travisanutto, and was building quite a train of karts behind him. Evenutally Vant’hoff managed to squeeze passed the Msport driver, allowing Hiltbrand passed as well. This started Porters fall down the field, as he was swamped by Patterson, Irlando, Pirttilahti and Beganovic. Patterson was also on a recovery drive, having started 8th, the Scott was now up to 4th and challenging Hiltbrand. An expert move at the first corner saw Patterson into 3rd.
It would soon be over for Hiltbrand, his CRG would grind to a halt with its spark plug missing. That promoted Beganovic to 4th and Porter back into the top 5. Meanwhile, Patterson was starting to apply the pressure to Dilano Vant’hoff. The Sauber driver was all over the back of the Forza racing machine but couldn’t find a way passed. Then all hell started to break loose as the rain started to fall with 3 laps to go. Drivers started defending and fighting like crazy, Porter was the main benefactor early on, climbing as high as 3rd as others struggled with the ice like conditions. With drivers going off everywhere, the race was red flagged, handing Lorenzo Travisanutto his first CIK win of the season, Vant’hoff would cross the line 2nd, but was handed a 5 second penalty, promoting Patterson to 2nd and Beganovic 3rd. An impressive run from Wild Card Ben Door saw him finish 4th with Morgan Porter rounding out the top 5. Further down the order, Harry Thompson had a strong race to finish 12th having started in 25th.
That result sees Dexter Patterson extend his lead in the championship tally to 58 points, 15 more than Lorenzo Travisanutto who moves up to 2nd. Gabriele Mini’ cements 3rd on 35 ahead of Vant’hoff in 4th on 30. Despite missing out on the final, Juho Valtanen is 5th just ahead of Dino Beganovic. An impressive performance from Porter sees him move into the top 1o in 8th.
The next time we see the OK field on track will be at Kristianstad, Sweden at the start of June, the venue where Travisanutto won the World Championship last season.
Image: CIK
