Difficult weekend for Niklas Krütten at Winter Cup in Lonato
The 22nd edition of the Winter Cup at the South Garda Circuit in Lonato was once again a well-visited event with 290 drivers coming from all over the world. Niklas Krütten experienced a weekend with many hurdles and an unlucky end. Despite unfaulty setbacks, the young driver from Trier demonstrated a hearty fighting spirit right until the end and impressed with consistently fast lap times.
The start to the weekend on Friday was clouded over by technical problems with the drive. With the change of the engine and a broken drive chain, important time in order to find the right set-up for the chassis was lost. But thanks to Niklas´ experience around the South Garda Circuit, he got himself out of a tight spot with qualifying in a well-deserved P7.
He fought his way further up the field in the first qualification race, but suffered a setback after being involved in starting collisions in both the second and third race. But the young driver from Trier didn´t get himself down. In the „Super Heat” on Sunday, he put everything on one card to keep his small chance of entering the final alive. After a strong start into the race, he showed great manoeuvres through the field and improved position by position. But a latterly given time penalty for a damaged front bumper resulted in P23 and the early end.
„This was a very difficult weekend“, said Niklas on Sunday. „It started with the engine problems, then the missing time to find a good set-up and then being pushed off twice in the pre-runs. But it doesn´t always go to plan in the karting sport. We were able to show our competitiveness during the „Super Heat“. Due to the strange final modus I had to take full risk and knew I could take a penalty. Despite the result being disappointing, we take a lot of positives from the weekend and are confident about the next race.“