Taylor Barnard completed an excellent debut in OK after completely dominating the WSK Champions Cup final. The British driver was not the only driver to perform well on his debut as Gabriele Mini finished second, followed by Cristian Comanducci.
The young driver Taylor Barnard (Nico Rosberg Academy) was strong since the very beginning of his OK career. The Brit took Pole in Adria by only 0.027 ahead of his team mate Dexter Patterson (KR Motorsport). They were closely followed by Dilan Van T’hoff (Forza Racing) and world champion Lorenzo Travisanutto (HTP Kart Team).
Unlike it happened on the other categories, it was not necessary to do eliminatory races since there already were less than 34 entries. Qualifying for the final was then decided on three manches, held on Saturday.
On the first of these three races, Taylor Barnard won ahead of Lorenzo Travisanuto and Danny Carenini (AS Autoeurope). On the other two, some of the big names had issues. Lorenzo Travisanuto retired on the second manche, and so did Taylor Barnard on the third one, losing the Pole position for the final despite having won the first two.
It was Harry Thompson (Ricky Flynn Motorsport), member of the Red Bull Junior Team, who took Pole. He was followed by Dexter Patterson, Cristian Comanducci (Pacitto Racing) and Dilan Van T’hoff, who won the third manche.
The pre-final round also delivered some surprises as Lorenzo Travisanuto and Harry Thompson retired from a race that was won by Taylor Barnard, who recovered the lead after beating Cristian Comanducci.
The final began with a huge pile-up on which eight drivers were involved. Nicolò Cumana (B.M. Karting Team) lost control of his kart and collected two drivers who could not do anything to end up colliding with the other five involved drivers.
This wreck left one of the win contenders, the British driver Harry Thompson, out of the race. Another important driver and win candidate, Dexter Patterson, had also to retire on lap 12, when he was on fifth position.
The race was marked by Taylor Barnard‘s domain. The Nico Rosberg Academy driver increased his gap lap by lap and was able to claim the win by more than 3 seconds to Gabriele Mini (Parolin Kart Racing), who was also on his OK debut. The Italian driver fought and worked hard to beat his fellow countryman Cristian Comanducci, who finished third.