Max shows racing pedigree with three impressive qualifying results

Published on 23 November 2013 by Niels Hendrix

Once again Max Verstappen showed he is a racer through and through on the penultimate day of the KF World Championships karting. After a disappointing ninth position in qualifying practice, Max battled his way through the three qualifying heats in spectacular fashion, with two victories and a solid fifth place. As a result, the Dutchman will start Saturday's prefinal from the second place on the grid, boosting his chances to conquer the world title for automatic transmission karts.

A fourth place in the warm up at the Viva Karting Track in Sakhir, proved Max and the CRG team took the kart's set up into the right direction. Then, the 16-year old talent showed his potential from the get go in the first qualifying heat. After overtaking two opponents, Max comes through in seventh after the first lap, trailing polesitter Dorian Boccolacci by four seconds. In the remaining nine laps Max consistently put in fastest laps while overtaking Andrea Russo and Karol Basz, resulting in a fifth place, 2.3 seconds behind Boccolacci at the end of the first heat.

"At the start I got stuck, which forced me onto the dirty side of the track. It takes about three laps to clean the dirt of the tyres and regain the full grip. This meant the top four were out of reach for me, but after the tyres came back, it went well."

Unlike Wednesday and Thursday, the rain stayed at bay and a delightful 22 degrees accompanies the beginning of qualifying heat 2. At the start, Verstappen junior emulates his father Jos with a stunning getaway overtaking a handful of rivals and finding himself in third.
"At the start of the second heat a few guys drove into each other, forcing themselves of the track. They all braked to late", explains Max. "This meant that after the first corner, I was in fourth after which I could overtake Nicklas Nielsen in the twisty section of the track." However, third spot was not enough for the ambitious racer. As the finish line was crossed after eleven laps, Max had overtaken Dorian Boccolacci and Andreas Sebastian Hansen, to claim victory.

The start of the third and final qualifying heat sees chaos prevail as Nicklas Nielsen spins and takes himself and two rivals out of contention. Despite starting in the pack from ninth, Max manages, a tad lucky, to stay out of trouble. He is in third position after the first lap. Once again, Max is able to pick up the pace and after an equally swift and beautiful overtaking move on Ville Mantyla, he sits in second place. In a thrilling last lap, Max manages to pass Boccolacci making it two out of three for the CRG-factory driver!
In rather humble fashion Max explains: "In the last heat I had a good start which meant I could make up ground on the two leaders, which led to a last lap victory."

A fifth place combined with his two first place finishes gives Max P2 for Saturday's prefinal, with Boccolacci on pole. After a successful Friday, Max looks confident: "We definitely found the speed in the kart but as the field is competitive, things have to fall into place."
All eyes will be on Max to see how he will make it through the prefinal before, hopefully, fighting for the world title in the KF category, as he plans to extend his already impressive trophy collection.

The event schedule for Max (KF category):

Saturday November 23
13.40-14.00 Warm up (odd numbers)
15.20-15.50 Drivers' presentation
16.20-16.40 Prefinal (20km)
19.20-19.50 Final (30km)

Live timing is available at www.cikfiachampionship.com/live_timing.asp. The live stream will be available on Saturday afternoon: www.cikfiachampionship.com/live_streaming.asp.
You can find the latest new on the Verstappen Twitter (http://twitter.com/VerstappenFans) Max' personal Twitter account (http://twitter.com/MaxVerstappen3) and of course, on a daily basis, on the Verstappen Info Page. Do not forget to 'like' us on Facebook!

Results (Friday) of the 2nd round of the CIK-FIA World Championship 2013 (KF category):
Results warming-up (odd numbers)
Results qualifying heat 1
Results qualifying heat 2
Results qualifying heat 3
Combined results qualifying heats

Niels Hendrix / Stefan Meens