Heroic effort from SA at champs
PORT Elizabeth’s Michael Stephen claimed a fighting fifth place in the DD2 Masters class of last weekend’s Rotax Max Challenge grand finals in Portimao, Portugal.
A combination of on-track penalties and bad luck prevented yet another world championship title for South African karters, who competed against drivers from 59 countries.
Besides Stephen’s achievement, the best place achieved by a rider from the 10-member national team was sixth spot in the Mini Max class, which went to young Leyton Fourie from Alberton.
More than 350 drivers fought for honours in the biggest grand finals championship in the 18-year history of the most competitive karting championship in the world.
The week-long kart-fest saw drivers in the six classes take part in qualifying and elimination races before the six winner-takes-all finals were run last Saturday. While South Africa can look back on about 13 world championships achieved in this event since 2000, this year it was case of oh so close, rather than any ultimate prizes.
A multiple former SA karting champion, SA Rotax importer Ed Murray said this was the most competitive grand final he had attended.
Leyton, 12, came closest to glory, having taken the lead for a few brief moments in the Mini Max event for drivers aged 10 to 13.
Leyton qualified in third place for the finals, out of 36 karts. He ran in the top three on the opening lap of the final and then made a brilliant overtake to briefly lead for a few corners. He then mixed it in second and third places, before losing a bit of pace a few laps before the end, but still finished in sixth place.
Stephen, a multiple SA karting and Touring Car champion, came very close to winning the DD2 Masters title (for drivers aged 32 years and over) in 2015.
The week started well for the 36-year-old engineer from Port Elizabeth, challenging for top positions in qualifying and in his elimination heats.
But a mishap in the pre-final on the Friday saw Stephen start the final on the backfoot. A karter in front of him knocked his nose-cone badly, and rules in Rotax state that any driver with compressed nose cone mountings in a race gets an automatic 10-second time penalty.
Starting in 11th position in the DD2 pack for the final was a tough ask, but Stephen was able to charge back to an eventual fifth, lapping right on the pace of eventual winner Troy Woolston from Australia.
South Africa had high hopes of a victory in the DD2 Gearbox class, as SA champion Brad Liebenberg had already proved himself to be highly competitive on the world karting stage in previous events.
Liebenberg was on the pace in qualifying and elimination heats, with times in the top four, but initially suffered a nose-cone penalty. Then he was disqualified for being underweight at the weigh-in after the pre-final.
In the Junior Max category for ages 13 to 16, Port Elizabeth’s Joshua Coertze showed improving pace all week. He ran as high as fifth place in one of his elimination heats and qualified in 27th place for the final, an excellent showing in his first Rotax grand finals. He finished in 28th place.