FIA Karting European Championship, Portimao - Matveev and Severiukhin on top after the heats

The protagonists of the FIA European Karting Championship are starting to get serious, raising the level of competition even higher. Saturday's programme was quite demanding and long and kept everyone's attention high, especially in terms of Super Heats and Finals, staged tomorrow.

OK - Severiukhin takes the lead
Artem Severiukhin snatched the Saturday titles by taking the overall pole position in the last available heat. First of the outsiders and real suspect for the big score, the Swede, already winner a fortnight ago in the Champions Of The Future weekend, closed Saturday with three victories and three third positions, exactly equal points with Joe Turney.
The Englishman, one of the favourites on the eve of the race, came out on top today, although he missed out on the overall top spot by a whisker due to his fourth place in the last heat. Severiukhin and Turney will share the start from the first box of the Super Heats. Third position overall for the reigning World Champion, Tuukka Taponen, who was able to maximise his potential by scoring the same victories as his rivals.  Yesterday's poleman, Tomass Stolcermanis, slipped to fourth overall, but was still in the fight for success. Ean Eyckmans retains the top five thanks to his first position in the last heat.



OKJ - Matveev continues ahead of everyone
Yesterday afternoon's pole position boosted the Russian driver's morale even more. Five practically perfect for Matveev, so far, absolute protagonist of the first OKJ titled weekend. Four victories out of five at the end of the day, a strong signal for all the competition, although fierce and not far away starting with one of the surprises of the weekend, Nathan Tye for Sodikart colours. The Englishman did his best to prove consistent in his results, also collecting two victories. Matveev and Tye will start on pole position for tomorrow morning's two Super Heats.
Great recovery of the Ukrainian Oleksandr Bondarev, especially thanks to the victory in the last heat and currently third in the ranking. René Lammers and Jan Przyrowski complete the fourth and fifth overall positions. A bittersweet day for Anatoly Khavalkin forced to seventh place. The Parolin driver was able to exploit the starts in the best possible way, recovering ground right from the start. Three victories to his credit and a second place that, without the P16 after a penalty of 10sec (incorrect maneuver) in the penultimate heat, would have allowed to threaten the absolute pole position of Matveev.Mix of emotions also for the Birel Art driver, Kirill Kutskov, currently in sixteenth. A good progression slowed down by a retirement on the formation lap of the fourth heat after a steady performance between third and fifth place.

Super Heats
New for 2022 is the introduction of the Super Heats on Sunday morning. The Super Heats will follow the scoring system of any other heat, but will be longer. They will be reserved for the final qualifiers and the scores of Saturday's heats and Sunday's Super Heats will be added together to form the starting grid for the category finals.

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From Portimao, S.Corradengo