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Completing twice as many laps as everyone else has its obvious advantages, but under the hot Italian sun, it was also detrimental for Christophe Adams (GKS-Gem Sport/Birel) driving in two classes. He has now strengthened his Euro campaign by closing in on defending vice champ Jerome Bourquard (BRK/Sodikart), who remains at the top of the table in the points. For the Belgium driver, it’s still a long way to Sharm el Sheikh, where he hopes to represent his country by qualifying once more through the Euro Challenge, together with 13 other deserving drivers.

In the meantime, the competition is as close as it ever was in the Masters class this year. Adams won two out of three qualifying heats to take pole for the pre-final, sharing the front row with the fastest Master from Friday’s official timed practice. Goncalo Gaivao (Sportkart/CRG) was second only to Adams in the heats ranking, where the Portuguese driver beat the polesitter in the first race, but was defeated in the last two.

Starting on grid 3, Bourquard gave it a good shot, but seemed to lose some of the competitive edge he had towards the afternoon, still quicker in the first heat than everyone else over the course of the day during the races. Rotax Winter Sup winner Rui Vieira (Korridas/Intrepid) is always in with a chance of taking the honours, as he joined the Frenchman on row 2 Sunday for the first of the finals.

The ongoing rivalry that has existed between Adams and Bourquard for some time now, continued when the lights went out for the start of the pre-final. Adams lost the lead to Bourquard, but in the opening lap, their battle allowed Gaivao to take advantage of the situation and go into 1st. The front-runners got into a great dice for supremacy about lap 8 of 15, once Bourquard had worked his way back from 4th. He slipped through to take the lead from Gaivao, who then felt the pressure of Adams searching for an opportunity to steal 2nd. The CRG pilot set the best lap and held his place, denying Adams the extra point in the end. They’d broken away from Viera in 4th, under the watchful eye of the leader’s team mate Nuno Santos (Sportkart/CRG), who was originally 3rd in the first lap.

Starting on the outside row for the final worked against Gaivao, but instead in favour of Bourquard in Adams as the Portuguese drivers slotted in behind the leaders for 3rd and 4th. Mid-field the racing was nail-biting, with the places beyond Vieira in 5th being shuffled around until the dust settled further into the race. Bourquard had to relinquish 2nd in the race for the podium to the quickest driver, lacking around 2-tenths in the final that meant he had not way of holding Gaivao out. It began to come undone for Vieira, as he slid down the order to 8th and got into some predicaments that didn’t go his way; including one with his friend Pedro Loures (JPL Consulting/PCR) and another with Georges Popoff (RKO/Tonykart) in 9th in the last lap, which ended their final. A mistake from Gaivao running slightly offline didn’t assist him in hunting down Adams, even though he still closed the gap to within half a second.

The leader continued to get quicker, right up until the second last lap of 19, almost knocking off Gaivao’s time from qualifying. 3rd belonged to Bourquard to keep his series lead, while Santos couldn’t advance on P4, with Loures making it 3 drivers from Portugal in the top 5. Steve White (SMP Racing/Intrepid) showed a glimpse of his usual Masters form to move up to 6th but it was short-lived when he found himself on the grass and rejoining the race, having to settle for 7th behind Maksim Shaposhnikov (Hugo Motorsport/Kombikart). Japanese driver Katsuhisa Ikuta (Protrain Racing/Gillard) had some bad luck and failed to finish, classified in 10th.

It was an extremely happy Christophe Adams who stepped up onto the podium to enjoy the celebrations at Busca:

“I’m happy, but even happier because I wasn’t sure that I could win! We changed everything for the Masters final and it paid off; we were faster than everyone. Racing two categories has been tiring in this heat. It was hard and I made a few mistakes going from the Max to the DD2 kart, which are very different to drive. I’m happy to have won. Also, a special thanks to my family at home for their support.”

Photo by Bas Kaligis