Max 2nd at Winter Cup 2011 in Lonato

Published on 16 February 2011 by Niels Hendrix

The 16th Winter Cup opened the International kart racing season according to forecasts and expectations: on the South Garda Circuit of Lonato the 248 drivers fought toughly to achieve the win in every category, which made the results quite uncertain until the end and all the protagonists were willing to take centre stage.

If the major constructors and the top teams were waiting for this race to verify their potentialities, they managed to get almost all the answers they needed, including some indications about weather change. In fact, the weekend of Lonato was particularly rich of weather changes: from the sun on Friday to the fog on Saturday and, eventually, the occasional showers on Sunday.

In KF3 it was a driver from Northern Europe to go faster on the wet track. Here the win went to the Norwegian Dennis Olsen, who had his payback after Energy's disappointment in KZ2. There were many expectations for Max Verstappen (CRG-Maxter), who dominated the qualifying heats, but the young Dutch driver, son of the former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, had some troubles from the set-up of his kart on the wet track. However, Verstappen achieved an excellent second place, just ahead of another Energy's driver, the Swedish Robin Hansson.

Max Verstappen: "After doing really well in the trials and in the heats, under Sunday's rain we couldn't find the right set-up for the chassis. Anyway, I feel relaxed and confident about the season which is just about to start. On the dry, I really felt I could win. But the rain appeared on Sunday and another driver proved to be very fast in those conditions. He managed to gain a little advantage and I had to content my self with a second place, as in 2010."

Niels Hendrix