The emphasis is on tuning and raw speed but it also takes a lot of driving skill to be on it straight away!

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Open to anyone from age 6 years upwards, the next race is scheduled for Sunday 19th May. Entry to a race is £45 in advance and £50 on the day, with gates open from 7am. The circuit’s café will be open all day and the bar will open in the afternoon. Four race categories are available; Bambino, Cadet, Junior and Adults.

Three Sisters is the North West’s premier kart circuit, with a variety of different track configurations being used over the course of the championship. At the end of the season the winner of each category will not only receive a trophy but also enjoy a fantastic prize, one prize being an Intensive Race Training course worth £495. Provided by The Racing School, this is a full day of 1-to-1 coaching from professional instructors in a saloon and a single-seater racing car. Drivers are sure to develop their skills, increase confidence and improve their speed.

For more information visit www.three-sisters.co.uk/karting/owner_driver.asp.

Heat 1
Jorrit Pex (CRG/TM), the pole sitter, was deprived of the lead on the 4th lap by Max Verstappen (CRG/TM), who won the race with a lead of 0.8s on Pex, despite a slight difference in performance to his compatriot. Marco Ardigo (Tony/Vortex) remained in 3rd position while Anthony Abbasse (Sodi/TM), who set the fastest lap, crossed the line in 4th place before a penalty of 10s for a jumped start put him down to 17th. Davide Fore (CRG/TM) was promoted to 4th, ahead of Jonathan Thonon (CRG/Maxter), Bas Lammers (Intrepid/TM) and Charles Leclerc (ART/TM). Paolo De Conto (Birel/TM) retired on the third lap.

Heat 2
The win for Verstappen was even more pronounced in the second heat which he led without interruption from start to finish. Admittedly, Pex had to fight against an offensive from Ardigo who was contesting second position. Abbasse secured 4th place while sparing his tyres as much as possible. There was bad luck for De Conto, Hajek, Leclerc, Toninelli and Hanley, who moved a hairline on the grid and thus were given a 10s penalty.

The intermediate classification is of course Verstappen ahead of Pex, Ardigo and Thonon, with Fore 5th and Lammers 6th.

Sunday will see the Prefinal and Final, which will be live streamed on www.cikfia.tv/.

Italians are on pole position in the two Prefinals on Sunday, Marco Zanchetta (Maranello/TM) with a very good score (five wins and a 2nd place) which puts him ahead of his rival Riccardo Negro (DR/TM) on four wins, tied with the Dutch driver Ricardo Romkema (Zanardi/TM). Norway’s Emil Antonsen (DR/TM) has scored a great breakthrough result in 4th place ahead of the Swedish Douglas Lundberg (Maranello/TM) who would have been behind Felice Tiene (CRG/Maxter) without an exclusion for non-compliance for his reed in the last race which put him down to 20th position.

The racing will begin tomorrow with two separate Prefinals, where drivers will have to be 17th at worst to get in to the Final.

The Italian Felice Tiene (CRG/Maxter) was quickly ahead of the first wave with a time of 48.731s, 0.134s faster than his compatriot Nicola Marcon (Tony/Vortex), while the Czech Jan Midrla (Birel/TM) was 3rd by 0.214s and the French driver Clement Da Silva (Birel/TM) 4th by 0.227s.

The Italian Simone Brenna (TB/Modena) was long the fastest in the second session, ahead of his rivals by over two tenths, but Riccardo Negro (DR/TM), the Italian driver racing here under his German license, waited until the last moment to set an enviable time of 48.633s, or 0.013 faster than Brenna. Alessandro Manetti (Praga/Parilla) eventually moved up to 0.153s behind Negro.

The times didn’t improve in the third session, headed by the Dutch Ricardo Romkema (Zanardi/TM) 48.818s ahead of the Swedish Douglas Lundberg (Maranello/TM), and another Dutch driver, the young Marijn Kremers (Birel/TM) and the German Marcel Jeleniowski (CRG/TM), who was 4th by less than 0.05s off the leader.

The last session wasn’t faster either, dominated by the Norwegian Emil Antonsen (DR/TM) on 48.787s, 0.007s faster than Marco Zanchetta (Maranello/TM), Kristijan Habulin (CRG/Modena) and the New Zealander Daniel Bray (GP/TM).

The unofficial standings show Negro ahead of Brenna, Tiene 3rd, Manetti 4th, Antonsen 5th, Zanchetta 6th, Romkema 7th, Lundberg 8th, then Jeleniowski and Kremers 9th and 10th.

18 competitors fell 3 to 6 places, including Felice Tiene who lost pole in group 1, and Simone Brenna and Marcel Jeleniowski who were also ranked among the best. Given the difficulty faced by the teams to manage this problem, it is far from over.

The pack followed, everyone took care to warm up their machine and the first laps were so insignificant they didn’t fall until two minutes before the end. Of course, then everything happened at a breakneck pace …

Max Verstappen (CRG/TM) and Anthony Abbasse (Sodi/TM) shared the fastest laps, Jonathan Thonon (CRG/Maxter) then started to interfere, Marco Ardigo (Tony/Vortex) and Fabian Federer (CRG/Modena) showed the tips of their spoilers, but the session ended with a superb duel between Verstappen and Jorrit Pex (CRG/TM). Max set his best time on the last lap, but there was a few hundred metres for Jorrit to respond, which he did beautifully with 47.873s, a brilliant 0.115s faster than Max.

Davide Fore (CRG/TM) also played his best card late in the session and was third with Ardigo fourth only 0.135s from pole, while Charles Leclerc (ART/TM) climbed to 5th position at the last moment. Paolo De Conto (Birel/TM) finished in 6th place ahead of Abbasse. Yannick De Brabander (Maranello/TM) failed to start on the grid despite a change of spark plug.

Dreezen was the first penalty of the list, a surprise as his Vortex was equipped with a silencer which had been very effective and had proved its worth in 2012 at Sarno. Michele Di Martino (Energy/TM), Leonid Panfilov (BRM/TM) and Sinan Van der Raad (CRG/TM) were also sanctioned.

• Live timing from European KZ and KZ2 is at www.cikfia.com/competition…
• The Finals will be shown live on www.cikfia.tv
• Reports on each race and an unofficial intermediate classification will be on www.kartcom.com
• Andy Gould will be posting live updates on www.facebook.com/kartingma…

Wrathall, a former Ginetta G50 champion, is now a British Touring Car Independent winner and podium finisher. Stoneman won the Formula 2 series and now races Porsche Cup. Nigel Moore is also a Ginetta champion and the youngest driver to race at Le Mans whilst Hawksworth is the current Star Mazda champion and now races in Indy Lights.

For this weekend 15 KZ1 karts, capable of 90mph, will line up headed by KZ2 ABkC Super 4 champion Matt Dittman, with runner-up James Mudd expected to press him hard. Multiple Super One Max 177 champion Lucas Orrock has transferred disciplines to the shifter classes, whilst Under 18 CIK-FIA World Champion Henry Easthope is also on the list.

It will be mega-exciting to see just who comes out top at the twisty Cumbrian track. The attached image shows Dean Stoneman and Frank Wrathall battling it out at Rowrah in the past.