OK and OKJ World Championship: Kutskov and Van Langendonck take the win after some hectic finals
- Francesca Zito
- Oct 13, 2023
- 4 min read
Last weekend we saw the second most important event of the year after the KZ and KZ2 World Championship, take place in Franciacorta.
Franciacorta hosted the OK and OKJ World Championship, a weekend overall on the edge-of-the-seat. In fact, Turney's injury after the contact with Gomez in the Senior Final was quite scary, but first things first let’s proceed with order and find out together what happened in this thrilling racing weekend.
In OKJ Van Langendonck wins with Forza
Christian Costoya takes pole position on Friday and keeps his pace up throughout the heats which will give him pole position for the final, the Italian Filippo Sala joins him on the front row. The final of the Junior class started with some unexpected turns, as Wherrell, Ramaekers and Wolfe were involved in a crash after just a few corners from the start putting 2 of the main contenders for the title out of the games.
A few laps later Saleh and Francis come into contact while fighting for a top10 position: a disappointing result for the German, who started the final from 4th and had a great chance of fighting for the title. Great comeback instead for the Romanian David Cosma Cristofor, who ended his first world championship with a P4, after winning a heat and qualifying P6 for the final.
As for the podium, Lindblom took the lowest step: the Swedish driver, after winning the Prefinal and qualifying P5, managed to secure the third place after a well fought race. Poleman Christian Costoya, on the other hand, finished second, bringing home the silver medal after a memorable weekend. The trophy was lifted by the Belgian Dries Van Langendonck, who proved that he deserved this title by being consistent throughout the whole weekend and starting the final from 3rd, which allowed him to eventually pass Costoya and runaway towards the finish line.The Forza Racing team had to wait only two years to celebrate the world title again, after the one won with Nakamura-Berta in 2021 always in OKJ.
OK final: world championship shattered for Gomez and a big scare for Turney
After two days of Qualifying and Heats in which the drivers gave everything they had, the OK final was anything but quiet.
In a race that saw 14 out of 36 drivers cross the finish line, the coups de théâtre started already in the first lap: Rillaerts, Pavan, Bianco, Olivieri and Coluccio went out after just a few corners, thwarting their chances to fight for the top spots. Same result also for one of the title contenders, Alex Powell, who ended his last world championship, before landing in F4, with a DNF. Powell had recovered up to 12 places and was in 3rd position when due to a contact with Mac Laughlin his chances of winning world champs were torn apart; Fionn ended up retiring soon after for an engine failure.
The episode that caused much discussion though was the contact between Joe Turney and Gabriel Gomez: after 2 wins in the heats, O Menino do Brasil had managed to qualify in fourth place for the final, where after a tricky start, he showed promising speed that boded well for him and the CRG Factory team. On lap 10, Gomez managed to overtake Turney taking the race lead: however, the British driver immediately tried to overtake him back, coming into contact that threw both of them out of the run for the title. Turney tried to get back on track, but at that moment Tuñon found the Brit in front of him and was unable to avoid him, driving with his kart over his ankle, which brought out the red flag.
The Brazilian could not hold back tears after the incident, his chances of winning the world championship shattered after he wasn’t allowed to start the race again. Truly heart breaking for him and the CRG Team who had been looking for this title since 2016 when Pedro Hiltbrand won it.
The race resumed a few minutes later with Kirill Kutskov in first position: the DPK Racing team driver, starting outside the top10, climbed back up to the lowest step of the podium, becoming the race leader after the crash involving Turney and Gomez. The Russian managed to keep the first place, taking the 2nd consecutive world title for the Spanish team DPK: probably not the driver we all would have bet on, but as the proverb says, "fortune favors the bold," and in this case Kutskov had plenty of boldness.
Joining him on the podium were the European 2023 champion René Lammers and Kean Nakamura-Berta. Despite an unlucky start of the race for the Dutch, Lammers still took the second step of the podium after an extremely positive weekend. Bitter-sweet ending instead for the Prema team driver who, after taking Pole Position for the final, had to settle for a third place at the checkered flag.
A world championship that definitely entertained us and allowed us to see the faces of the future of motorsport, so remember their names, because these guys will make talk of themselves.
Comments