CIK: Nyck De Vries Sarno summary

A World Cup Within Reach

After winning the European Championship and the title of German Champion 2009, Nyck De Vries was on his way to his first world consecration on the Sarno track (Italy), the first weekend of September. Unfortunately, a little technical error had heavy consequences and relegated the fastest kartman of the race to fifth place in the World Cup for KF3.

It does not happen very often that a driver shows such impressive performances during a world karting event, with as many as 75 entered participants. In a sport where gaps between the best drivers amount to only a few hundredths of a second, Nyck De Vries literally dominated the race, at least until the final: pole position with a gap of over 5 tenths over his rivals, four victories out of four in the qualifiers, each time with best time in race, then victory in the pre-final, once again with the fastest lap among the 34 finalists. Near Naples, Nyck was the best...

"My Zanardi-Parilla was once again perfect at Sarno. Together with my team, my team manager Dino Chiesa and the data capture system we manage perfectly, we could really exploit the equipment to the maximum" Nyck commented. "Performances were so impressive that exceeded even my expectations. I did not think I could dominate the World Cup so easily". The young Dutch driver has the ability to conquer a solid advantage from the very first laps in race thanks to his perfect management of tyres, regardless of temperature.

After being the quickest at the start, as usual, he was first after the first corner in the final. But Nyck De Vries quickly realised that he could not gain this final. This is the explanation provided by the talented driver. "Sure, I won the prefinal, but I was not fully satisfied with my level of performance. To be on the safe side, we decided to change the engine for the final. Unfortunately, we forgot that the engine we chose was not equipped with a pinion with 13 teeth, but with a pinion with 12 teeth, since it had been mounted on the second chassis ready for the wet, given the changing weather conditions at the beginning of the weekend. With such gear ratio, the engine reached the maximum of 14,000 RPM, and the breaker, very quickly, therefore I could not prevent other drivers from passing me on the longest straight stretch of the track".

Despite his disappointment, the driver from Chiesa Corse did not give up and fought until the very end, overtaking his rivals in the technical part of the track. It was a very frustrating race and, most of all, it meant that the World Cup was lost! Of course, many people congratulated Nyck and came to tell him that he deserved victory, but the Dutch driver, fifth on arrival, found it hard to conceal his disappointment. "I would have liked to dedicate this success to my compatriot Thomas Knopper, European KZ2 Champion, who died tragically in an accident a few weeks ago. Moreover, my technical partners Zanardi, Chiesa Corse and Iame deserved this victory. But this is all part of the race" said Nyck, already determined to win again very soon...

-credit: ndv