FLORIDA WINTER TOUR
BIREL ART WINS THREE FLORIDA WINTER TOUR TITLES
The 2015 FWT Rotax MAX Challenge came to a close last weekend in Ocala, crowning Birel ART as the championship winner in Mini Max with Sebastian Alvarez, in DD2 Masters with Christophe Adams, and in DD2 with Jordon Lennox-Lamb. The team also took the vice-champion title in DD2 with Nick Neri and in Rotax Senior with Oliver Askew.
Birel ART’s Ocala supremacy played put as outright domination in DD2, with Jordon Lennox-Lamb taking a clean sweep of the heats, the Pre-final, and the Final and setting the best lap of both races on Sunday to secure the championship crown and with American driver Nick Neri landing the vice-champion title by winning the Super Pole and then finishing a steady second from heat 2 to the Final. The Birel ART group also locked out the final spot on the championship podium with DR team driver Danny Formal, who made the Final’s Top 3 with a fast rise from sixth in the Prefinal.
Birel ART also had a clean run for both the round victory and the championship title in Mini Max with Sebastian Alvarez, who started out the weekend as third fastest overall, then took two wins and a fourth place finish in the heats, and finally laid down the law for his opponents in the Prefinal and the Final.
In the DD2 Masters Birel ART secured the class title thanks to Christophe Adams’ star performance: third in his qualifying session and fourth for the Super Pole, second and twice fourth in the heats, then second in the Prefinal, where he also scored the second best lap, and third across the line in the Final.
In Rotax Senior, it was Oliver Askew’s speed-devil ways that allowed Birel ART to claim the FWT vice-champion title. Askew started out second in the hunt for the Super Pole and continued to show incredible speed into the heats, finishing again second by just 77 thousandths in heat 1 and recovering from a penalty in heat 2 with a hard charge in heat 3, where he started from last on grid and finished third. In the Prefinal Askew continued his climb, plowing his way from eighth to second and securing a front row start for the Final. Here he started and finished second, setting the best lap of the race.
The group also proved the competitive edge of its kart fleet in the Rotax Junior, where official Ricciardo Kart Racing driver in Europe Rasmus Lindh opened with the sixth best qualifying time overall at his double debut in the FWT and in Rotax classes. Unfortunately, setbacks in the heats conditioned his final result: he ended the weekend nineteenth, after rebounding from a contact with a phenomenal rise from thirty-third to twentieth in the Prefinal. Aidan Keel also stood out in the class, starting the weekend in twenty-sixth place and closing in the Final’s Top 5, thanks to an impressive climb across the heats that saw him rise to fifteenth, then to fifth and eventually to third.
Birel ART also confirmed their karts’ speed and reliability in the youngest field, where Sebastian Montoya gave another star performance in Micro Max. While his dad Juan-Pablo Montoya secured a nice IndyCar win in St. Petersburg, little “Seb” fought all weekend to make up for a major set-back in the first heat, after making fourth in the Super Pole. His fierce-paced charge saw his Birel ART kart climb up to fifth and fourth in his other heats, then from sixteenth to tenth in the Prefinal, and from tenth to seventh in the Final.
Birel ART President Ronni Sala: “I am very happy, we had another fantastic weekend in Ocala. We wrapped up the FWT Rotax Challenge with three champion titles and two vice-champion titles and, most importantly, we confirmed our competitive edge once again, after showing consistency of results and the reliability of our chassis throughout, with victories and podium finishes at every round. These are very important results for our guys back home, who work non-stop to keep improving our chassis, as well as for our partners in the United States, including our new importer, PSL Karting, and the other teams that race with our brand, like KMS, Andersen, and Montoya.”