Karting |04 May 2023

Liza Rene-Cosgrow won the Masters class race (Photo: Contributed)

As the dust settles, the championship protagonists appear

The senior classes completed the second rounds of competition in this season’s karting championship, with the Masters (SF1) and Intermediate A (SF2) racing over the Labour Day weekend.

In perfectly cool conditions which led to fast race times, both winners on the day also recorded the fastest times for their classes, with Liza Rene-Cosgrow (35 minutes 20.3 seconds) in the Masters and Carlos Quatre (44 minutes 54.6 seconds) in Intermediate A, both taking wins in the finals.

In the Masters class, Dave Rene started on pole for the final, but after battling with brake issues from the beginning, he overshot the esses on lap six and Liza, who started second and who was stuck on his rear bumper at the time, grabbed the lead and went on to win the eight-lap race, with Dave a close second. Rennick Bonnelame also recorded fast times and was also in the hunt throughout, but had to settle for third overall. Fabio Williams was still having teething issues as he gets up to speed in this new class and stalled his kart at the start of the final warm-up lap and could not go any further.

Though it’s still in its early stages of the championship, Dave leads the table with 44 points followed by Liza on 38, Marc Delcy, who decided not to compete on the day, has 18, while both Rennick and Fabio are equal on 14 points. In this class anything can happen.

In the Intermediate A class, Carlos Quatre dominated from qualifying right through to the final to take an important win. Dean Maillet was equally fast in the earlier heats and was running second when he spun in the hairpin which dropped him down to finish fifth. While Carlos Quatre opened a huge gap, the remainder of the field fought it out behind and Eric Maillet made the most of the situation to motor to a well-earned second place and closely followed by Mitra Labrosse in third position. Jean-David Melanie made the most overtakes in the race to finish fourth while one time class leader Christian Bastienne could only manage sixth with Terence Anderson was seventh.

The race format for this class was changed for this round with competitors racing for 10 minutes instead of 10 laps which made for a longer and physically tougher race.

Denilson Melanie who was leading the championship but was not on the island on the day, has now dropped to third with Carlos heading the group with 40 points followed by Eric with 28, Denilson and Christian equal on 26, fourth equal are Mitra and Dean with 22 points, followed by Jean-David with 18 and Terence with 10.

The third round of races begin this weekend on Saturday with the Junior and Cadet classes, as the competitors battle it out again to gain those vital championship points. Racing starts at 2pm at the Champions Park Raceway, Roche Caïman.

Contributed