WSK 2008 opening with Julie Tonelli

After causing a heated debate in the karting world, blamed for all the ills in the world or praised for all its good qualities, WSK International Series 2008 finally made its debut in La Conca, on Palm Sunday, last week-end.

Thanks to the loyalty of French pilots and to the growing support of foreign teams, the well-know pink butterflies of Julie Tonelli appeared on many karts, during a particularly successful competition.

WSK offers a new vision of karting by enhancing the customary standards of this sport. Priority is given to large factory teams that offer increasingly professional standards to attract more and more pilots. However, it is still possible to participate with reasonable means to this European competition, which brings together the world elite of karting. Organisation is very accurate, pilots receive everything they need and all modern means of communication are used to inform participants, fans and the media. At La Conca racetrack, results lived up to expectations, with a formula that could bring more notoriety to karting without negatively affecting those who practice this sport just for passion.


Team Maranello joined in with foundation «Julie Tonelli pour l’Enfance». With the boost provided by Davide Forè, pink butterflies appear more and more often on Maranello karts, with manager Armando Filini’s blessing. Certainly we owe him a lot of thanks for this. This support allows the Foundation to reach an increasingly international public.

However, Davide Forè experienced a difficult week-end in La Conca. Despite his good results during free practice, Davide only obtained a modest 23rd position after official time qualifying. After that, he tried to catch up in each heat; he succeeded in the first heat, where he ended up 8th, but not in the second, when he was pushed back to 26th position owing to a collision. In the pre-final, the situation became catastrophic after a collision followed by the pilot’s withdrawal after the first turn. Davide managed to save the situation during the final, where he moved up from 34th to 8th position!


Florian Alfano is in great shape this season, in his new PDB team. 8th after official time qualifying, he also participated in Super Pole, which enabled him to move up a position. 11th at pre-final, unfortunately Florian did not conclude the final. Michael Ryall, GKS pilot and winner of KF2 World Cup last year, also experienced problems at La Conca. He had to go through repechage to be admitted to pre-final, where he ended up 24th. Even worse, he had a collision during the last lap of the final. As far as Armand Convers is concerned, things went pretty well for him thanks, in particular, to his new TM engine, even though his PCR was not competitive enough yet to enable him to compete among the best. He ended up 20th.

The two Sodi boys, Alban Varutti and Anthony Abbasse did a good job by constantly improving their performance, although they did not achieve the results they hoped. Anthony withdrew at the final and Alban ended up 19th.


In KF3, competition was tough, with several collisions. Aaro Vainio lost all his chances at the pre-final start, when another pilot tried to overtake him on the side. Pity for this young Finnish pilot, who was 4th after the official time qualifying and started on the front row of the grid. In any case, Aaro managed to move up to 12th position during the final. Brandon Maïsano, instead, fought hard during the whole race to catch up. Brandon was 16th after the heats and, as usual, he never gave up a single inch. He was 3rd after the pre-final and 2nd at the final.

On the podium, he was with Danish Michelle Gatting, who showed an impressive fighting spirit. Portuguese David Da Luz took his chance during repechage and finally obtained a remarkable 16th position. Maxim Zimin, from Russia, and Henri Rajala, from Finland, placed their Maranello at 24th and 28th position.

Guillaume De Ridder never found the chassis adjustment suitable for hard tyres and did not qualify. Neither Mathieu Jaminet, nor Edward Frolenkov, nor Daniel Cudic reached the final.

Fuente: Julie Tonelli