Junior Rotax graduate Jack Barlow delivered a superb performance on his international debut at the Rotax Winter Cup, held at Campillos in Spain last weekend (13/14 February). From the outset the Dan Holland Racing driver was amongst the pace-setters, and in a close timed qualifying session recorded the fifth fastest time. In his three following heats, Jack scored two impressive victories and a second place to seal pole position for the first of Sunday’s two finals. He scored a comfortable victory in the pre-final to again give him the advantage for the main race.

At the start of the final, having made a good start from pole position, Jack headed the 34-strong field - but a bold manoeuvre by the recently-crowned World Finals victor, Japan’s Ukyo Sasahara - saw him lose the initiative and several places. Now fifth, Jack knew he had to clear the trio ahead of him quickly if he was to peg the gap to the fast-disappearing Sasahara.

For the spectators it made for an enthralling encounter. Within two laps, Jack was back up to third and closing in on the 2nd placed driver. He then spent the next six tours chasing his quarry down, and once he had bridged the gap, a tight, close private battle unfolded. Neither would yield and as the remaining laps wound down, they repeatedly passed and re-passed each other - trading stickers on their sidepods.

“That was a good race,” he said afterwards. “Neither of us was giving each other any room and it was a very equal contest.” Jack eventually managed to gain the upper hand, but could do nothing about Sasahara’s substantial advantage and took the chequered flag some six seconds adrift. Nevertheless he expressed his satisfaction with his performance: “I’m delighted to be on the podium at my first attempt in European competition. I’ve learned a lot and really enjoyed the experience. It has given me a lot of confidence, especially for Florida next weekend (20/21 February).”

As part of his prize for winning last year’s Formula Kart Stars Mini Max title, the Freeminds-backed driver has been invited to take part in a round of the Florida Winter Tour at the Palm Beach International Raceway. He says: “I can’t wait. I’ve always wanted to race in America and now I’ve got the chance! I really hope I can do myself justice and it would be fantastic if I can repeat the form I showed at Campillos. The organisers have already made me feel very welcome and I’m looking forward to representing Formula Kart Stars, Freeminds and of course, myself in the best possible way.”

DHR driver impresses on international debut. “I’d have paid for 2nd (place) before we went,” was how team boss Dan Holland summed up Jack Dex’s performance at Campillos in Spain, last Sunday (14 February). Jack was making his European racing debut in the Rotax Winter Cup, the self-styled ‘ice-breaker’ to the prestigious Euro Max championship.

After showing impressive pace in pre-race testing, he maintained his early form and was 8th fastest (out of 61) in timed qualifying. From this encouraging start, he convincingly won the first of his three heats. However, a crash in his following race – as he put it: “My fault. I went for a poorly-timed overtake in the wet, on slicks” - saw him trail home in 28th place.

More drama in his third encounter saw him unable to finish higher than 13th place, but it was good enough to avoid the last chance race and qualify for the first of Sunday’s two finals.

Jack describes what happened in the pre-final: “I started from 25th on the grid and found myself in the middle of a massive crash at the first corner, where a spinning kart clipped me. At this point I thought it was game-over because I’d got a bent rear axle. Luckily for me though, the officials stopped the race and decided to re-run it. I ended up finishing fifth in the re-run and was very fast. However because of the tight schedule, we had less than half an hour to fix the kart in readiness for the main final.”

The Dan Holland Racing Racing team worked furiously to replace the bent axle and put fresh tyres on, but sacrificed adjusting the kart to its optimum set-up in order for Jack to take up his position on the third row of the starting grid. This was rather than suffer a penalty for arriving late and having to go from the back.

Picking his way forward from the off, Dex took the lead on lap 3 (of 16) and quickly established a comfortable lead. However, as the race entered its penultimate tour, eventual winner James Greenway managed to catch and pass Jack. In that manoeuvre, Dex briefly dropped to 4th but on the very last lap, nipped through to seal a worthy runner-up spot.

“I think I had a slightly different set up to Greenway, with me being fast at the start and James quicker at the end. Still, it is a fantastic result for me.”

Dan Holland was equally delighted: “For his first time at this level, second was brilliant.” Jack’s next race will be the opening round of the British Super 1 championship, at PFi on 20/21 March.

The opening race of the season on the RGMMC calendar for Rotax appeared as if it might be a complete wash-out last weekend at Karting Campillos in the Andalusia region off the Mediterranean coast when the worst weather to hit Spain for 60 years hammered the Winter Cup with a vengeance.

The 131 competitors who came from a total of 23 nations for the event were faced with conditions that not only put their driving skills to the test, but also jeopardized the meeting on the whole with as much as 48,000 litres of water pumped off the track. In the end, the organisers were forced to issue a revised schedule which saw Sunday’s race program run to time and the second Rotax Winter Cup champions crowned amidst some excellent racing. The podium winners collected more than €30,000 of free entries between them for the 2010 Rotax Euro Challenge and thousands of race fans tuned into to catch the new RGMMC TV on the net, as well as the live timing with commentary from Friday…

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At the end of a totally crazy and action-packed final, the Portuguese David Da Luz landed the CIK-FIA World Cup for KF2 at Alcaniz. Belgium’s Stoffel Vandoorne and Australia’s Mitchell Gilbert accompanied him on quite an unexpected podium, to say the least. For its first major international meeting, the Alcañiz Motorland complex got more than its fair share!

The final of the World Cup for KF2, category grouping the young hopefuls of international Karting, indeed proposed an incredible show. Author of the fastest qualifying practice time, Brandon Maïsano (LH-Maxter) lost ground after the
qualifying heats because of a broken engine. Only 12th on the starting grid of the pre-final, the Frenchman managed to catch up with the whole field to treat himself to pole position for the decisive final. However, Brandon did not take a very good start, which was not the case of the Italians Matteo Vigano (Birel-Parilla) and Felice Tiene (Kosmic-Vortex). These three rapidly found themselves in the top positions and began an unbelievable fight which also enabled Portugal’s David Da Luz (Zanardi-Parilla) to keep in touch and, two laps from the chequered flag, it seemed clear that the podium was going to be contested between these four drivers.

Betrayed by his engine on the penultimate lap, Matteo Vigano was the first to see his illusions vanish. Within a few hundred metres of the finish, Felice Tiene and Brandon Maïsano somewhat crossed swords in one of the countless overtaking manoeuvres… Whereas the Frenchman fell back to 6th place at the end, it was the Portuguese David Da Luz who for the first time grabbed the lead… before crossing the finish line as the winner! “I can’t believe what’s happening to me”, the small 16 years old Portuguese confessed, flabbergasted. “I really had to fight to follow the other three and was hoping at the very most to finish on the podium. Then Matteo retired and I saw Brandon and Felice collide… In just over a lap I went from 4th to 1st place. It is unbelievable!”

Felice Tiene actually crossed the line in second position but was imposed a 3-second penalty for getting out of his lane at the start. And it is Stoffel Vandoorne (CRG-Maxter), only 7th on the first lap, who inherited the silver medal. “What an incredible final lap”, the 17 years old Belgian explained. “Being only 15th on the starting grid, I had managed to catch up nicely. But although I was as fast as the leaders I could not fill the gap. I saw that things were getting heated at the front and thought I might take advantage of it. But I would never have dared to believe that I was going to cross the line in 3rd position and then get the runner-up spot after Tiene’s penalty! It is only my third Karting season and I had not come here before this weekend. I don’t think I quite yet realise what has just happened to me…” The driver on the third step of the podium seemed quite as surprised. 15 years old Mitchell Gilbert, who holds an Australian passport and has spent all his youth in Malaysia, drove the race of his life to climb on the podium.

“After having started my career in Malaysia, I came to Europe for the first time last year”, he remembers. “There is a huge difference in the driving level and my first year was catastrophic… At the beginning of the year, I went to live in Italy so as to be able to practice more and improve. Throughout the year I considerably progressed and hoped to be able to fight for podiums next year. I was with it during all the weekend and a top 10 finish would have been a good result, so I can’t get over managing to reach the podium!” The Swede Viktor Öberg (Gillard-Parilla) finished at the foot of the podium ahead of the unfortunate Felice Tiene and Brandon Maïsano. The top 10 was completed by the Dane Jacob Nortoft (FA Kart-Vortex), the British European champion Jordan Chamberlain (Tony Kart-TM), the Italian Mirko Luciani (Tony Kart-TM) and the Pole Karol Basz (RK-Parilla).

There is still one very prestigious event left on this year’s CIK-FIA calendar. In three weeks, from 8 to 11 October, the best drivers on the planet are going to fight it out on the Macao circuit in the World Championship for Super-KF, the top category of international Karting. It is the main meeting of the whole season, which should hopefully also offer a show of which Karting has the secret.

By CIK