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The first round of the European Karting Championship, raced this weekend at Muro Leccese in Italy proved a fine spectacle. With many ups and downs, twists and turns, and 6 different drivers on the podium of the day’s two races in Super KF, the spectators enjoyed a karting feast. In the end, it was Britain’s Jason Parrott who left Italy at the head of the Championship standings.

Whereas the sun had shone brightly during the first days of this first round of the European Karting Championship in Muro Leccese, the two programmed finals this Sunday were raced under a cloudy sky. These changed conditions can work to the advantage of drivers not always having had the best set-up in dry conditions.

Starting from pole position in Race 1, British driver Jason Parrott (Birel-Parilla) was unable to defend the challenge of Yannick de Brabander (Intrepid-TM). Definitely faster at the beginning of the race, the Belgian seemed on his way to a first victory in the European Championship on his 18th birthday. But tyre wear towards the end of the race prevented him from withstanding the challenge of Simo Puhakka (PCR-TM). At 20 years of age, the Finn driving for the PCR team thereby gained his first success at European level ahead of de Brabander and Robert Foster-Jones (FA Kart-Vortex), who knew how to preserve his tyres so as to enable him to finish strongly at the end of the race. The Finn Aaro Vainio (Maranello-Maxter) and the Italian Andrea Dale (CRG-TM) completed the top 5 in the first race. Handicapped by a mechanical problem, Jason Parrott only finished 9th but it was worse still for Zdenek Groman (Maranello-Parilla) and Miika Kunranta (Birel-Parilla), neither of whom completed the race.

Taking place under a threatening sky and at times with spots of rain, Race 2 presented a completely different aspect. Starting from pole position following his Race 1 victory, Simo Puhakka quickly fell back into the pack whereas Jason Parrott, this time avoiding his earlier problems was the quickest on the track by the time he took control of the race on the 6th lap. This time nobody was going to deny the young Briton his first European victory. Behind him, the race was fiercely contested. Contact between Florian Alfano (Maddox-Maxter) and Yannick De Brabander ruined the chances of both drivers. The battle for the podium places between Andrea Dale, Manuel Renaudie (Gillard-Parilla) and Simo Puhakka was going to be settled in favour of the two drivers coming from the back of the grid. Benefiting from less worn tyres following their non-finish in Race 1, Miika Kunranta and Zdenek Groman served up a superb race to accompany Jason Parrott on the podium. With the loss of Andrea Dale going off the track, Manuel Renaudie finished in 4th place. The Frenchman therefore achieved a good start to the championship since he occupies 3rd place behind Jason Parrott and Simo Puhakka.

The European Championship for Super KF will continue in the middle of Summer on July 9th at the Spanish Track of Zuera before finishing on the first weekend of August in France at Essay.