The 4th edition of the Champions of the Future International Karting Series will start on the Valencia circuit in Spain this weekend, from 9th to 12th March. The Championship will be organized by the same promoter of the FIA races (RGMMC) and will be divided into 5 appointments, each of them scheduled 15 days before one of the FIA events for the OK and OK Junior classes of this season: 4 rounds will be a prologue to the FIA European Championship and the 5th and last race will be before the FIA World Championship in Franciacorta.
As mentioned before, the two direct drive categories OK and OK Junior will be the protagonists of this Championship and for all the drivers and teams it will be a very useful opportunity to get ready for the FIA races. The full calendar of the Series foresees the first Round this weekend in Spain, to then compete in the 2nd Round in the Czech Republic on May 6th, in Denmark on June 3rd, in Italy on the Cremona track on July 15th and will end with the pre-World Championship race on September 16th in Franciacorta.
The CRG Racing Team will line up its almost complete OK and OK Junior team to better prepare for the FIA European Championship which, for all the Factory Teams, will be one of the sporting objectives of the season. The track feedback from the Champions of the Future will be very useful and indicative as the tires used will also be the same as for the FIA races: MG for the OK category and Vega for the OK Junior.
The CRG Racing Team will be competing with 7 drivers in the OK category and 2 in OK Junior one. Gabriel Gomez, Simone Bianco, Ronnie Stefani, Mattia Colnaghi, Francisco Macedo, Nikolas Roos and Mark Dubnitski will defend the CRG colors in the top class, while the Brazilian Gabriel Koenigkan will make his debut in OK Junior, alongside Klara Kowalczyk.
The race weekend program will follow the format of the FIA events and will include Free Practice on Thursday, followed by Qualifying Practice and the first Eliminatory Heats on Friday, other Heats on Saturday and Super Heats and Finals on Sunday which will be accessed by the best 36 drivers in each of the 2 categories.
The Live Timing service will be available from the first Free Practice on the official website of the Championship and from Friday on it will also be possible to follow the action on the track thanks to Live Streaming.
CRG drivers’ expectations:
Gabriel Koenigkan (OK Junior): “Being part of the official CRG Team is a source of pride and responsibility for me. I know this is a great opportunity for my future and I will work with the technical staff to minimize my learning time on the track and technical material. Working with Alessandro Manetti who boasts enormous international experience will also help me a lot from this point of view. I’m very confident and can’t wait to get on track for the first Free Practice”.
Mattia Colnaghi (OK): “It will be a race with many unknowns considering that it’s not a track where we usually race and we don’t have significant data to start from. We will discover the circuit and the setup step by step during Free Practice and like all the teams we will work according to the European Championship round, which will be the real objective of our work. In the first sessions I will focus on finding the feeling with the circuit and then we will start working on both the chassis and the engine. I’d like to have a linear weekend without contacts or technical problems and be able to get a positive result, which would obviously give us the right boost also for the FIA race on March 26th“.
