Verstappen bags World Champs opener final

01/09/13 - Races

Author: Vroomkart International

To say the winner of the World KF Championship opening round final was a safe call is not telling the whole story. Verstappen grabbed the win with almost 3" advantage, but the initial stages of the race showed the fierce opposition of Nielsen and Hanley posing a real threat.

The first three laps went by with Verstappen in the lead, yet unable to pull away. It's only the scrap between Nielsen and Hanley with multiple place swaps and fierce dicing that allowed the fast Dutch to ran away with the win.
When the pressure was off, Verstappen seemed from a different planet, stopping fastest laps one after the other, leaving 2nd placed man Nielsen unable to make up ground.
Good performance also by Russian driver racing with Energy Corse Egor Stupenkov, for part of the race strongly in 3rd, then taken by Hanley at the halfway mark, and by Stroll, consistently in the top-5. Hansen, Tiene, Hiltbrand and Boccolacci never had the chance to shine, just like Basz, Joyner and Russell, quite disappointing.
Disaster for Barnicoat, strongly in 5th place after the first lap and then forced to retire, and for Convers, out right after the start.