Viana Do Castelo, Portugal. Today was THE day for most of our canadian drivers participating at the Rotax Max Challenge World Finals. This competition has 186 drivers from 51 different countries and is the international karting event with the highest number of countries participating. The schedule for today was quite simple: a warm-up, the pre-finals and, after lunch, the 3 finals.

PRE-FINALS

We have to talk about the weather conditions again today because it has been an important factor throughout the event. Morning warm-ups took place on a dry track but it was very cloudy. On the pre-grid of the junior race, only 4 drivers had mounted rain tires so 30 of them were on slicks. When exiting the pre-grid for the formation lap, the rain began to fall. Amongst the 4 drivers with rain tires, we had our canadian driver Tyler Wheeler. Tyler started from the 21st place and before the end of lap one, he was in first place! He kept this position up to the 14th lap when he got passed by jamaican driver Timothy Stewart when he was blocked by slower drivers. He kept his second place to start on the first row of the final race. Only the 4 drivers with rain tires completed the 18 laps.

The pre-final in the senior class did not give the opportunity for our drivers to improve their position for the final race. Hugo started 14th and finished 15th, Blake Choquer started 27th and finished 31st and Luc Sauriol finished where he started, 29th.

In the DD2 clas, Pier-Luc Ouellette started very well and took the lead in the pre-final race. His start was too good for the officals who penalised Pier-Luc 15 seconds for jumping the start. After the race we learned that in fact, the pole sitter had lift his foot off the throttle at the start. On lap 5, Ouellette was still leading when a big crash forced the race director to call a red flag. Bad decision for our drivers which were running well. At the time, Scott Campbell had started 30th and was running 11th while Dennis Yasar was 16th. A few minutes later, they redid the starting grid, positionning the competitors after the 4th lap. They gavea 15 second penalty to Pier-Luc and he had to start from the 15th spot.

The restart was not easy for our drivers and at the end of the race, the officials combined the results for the 2 races to post the results of the pre-final. Even if Pier-Luc crossed the finish line in front of Scott Campbell, he was placed behind him. We are still trying to understand the way the officials compiled the results. Officially, Scott Campbell finished the pre-final in 11th place, Pier-Luc in 12th, Jean-François Valour 22nd and Dennis Yasar finished 27th despite problems with the shield on his visor that delaminated. After verification of the regulation, we have found that the official make a mistake by giving Pier-Luc a 15 second penalty instead of a 10 second penalty. Officials recognised their error but never wanted to change their decision because they said that Pier-Luc should have told them of their mistake before the restart when the drivers were on the track. Personnaly, I have never known any competitor driving his kart with a rule book in his racing suit.

THE FINALS

During lunch, the rain stopped, the sun came out to let the organisers proceed with the drivers' parade.

In the first final race of the day, Tyler Wheeler was the only canadian driver and was on the first row. At the start, it seemed that he accelerated a bit to late and got stuck in the first corner and crashed. His race ended right there. The Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals new Junior champion is Jorrit Pex (Belgium). Jack Hawksworth (UK) finished 2nd and Daniel Schellnegger (Autria) was 3rd.

In 2nd final (seniors), on the starting grid we had Hugo Ouellette (15th), Luc Sauriol (29th) and Blake Choquer (31st). Only 5 Masters drivers (over 32 y.o.) qualified for the final round and Luc had a good chance to climb on the podium in the Masters class despite his position on the grid. The sun came out for the start of the race but the track was still very wet with puddles. Our drivers started very well and Sauriol was on fire. After 2 laps, he was running in 13th! In the 13th lap, he passed Hugo Ouellette and finished the race 7th overall but FIRST in the Masters. Sauriol climbed on the podium of the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals for the 2nd time after his third place in the Masters class in Malaysia in 2002. Hugo did very well too, finishing 9th. Blake Choquer finished 27th. During the race, Blake climbed up to the 14th spot but the competition was very though. The new champion in the senior class is Ricardo Romkema (Netherlands), in second place we find Mike Joossens (Netherlands) and in third Mikhail Mitrokhin (Russia). In the Masters class, of course, Luc Sauriol was on the first step of the podium, while Evripidis Hatzistefanis (Greece) and Esa Pekkanen (Finland) completed the podium.

The final race of the day was in the DD2 class and we did not achieve the results expected from our drivers which were fast all week long. Pier-Luc Ouellette did not complete the first lap so Scott Campbell was our best chance for a podium. He worked very hard to try and reach it and finished 7th, 2,5 second from the podium. Jean-François Valour finished 16th and Dennis Yasar 21st. The new Champion is Ben George (Austria). Completing the podium, we had Michael Simpson (UK) and Al Tayer (UAE).

The event ends tonight with the Winners Banquet. We will post a photo report later this week when we get back home. To see a video interview of Luc Sauriol go to www.racingcast.tv. For later upcoming video interviews of the event watch the site later this week.

Auteur: Patrick Moreau