Niklas Krütten looks ahead into the future
The young German Motorsport talent Niklas Krütten concluded his international Kart season this year with the fifth round of the CIK-FIA European Championship in Sweden. After a phenomenal fourth place at the European Championship in Finland, the 14-year-old unluckily missed the entry into the final race by one point only this time. Nevertheless, the young German is pleased with his Rookie season in international Senior Karting and is looking with excitement into the future.
With 183 starters from 29 nations amongst the three classifications, the European round in Sweden was once more highly internationally represented. Lap times in the OK Senior Class were extremely tight at the track. After qualifying, Niklas found himself in P31 overall with a gap of only 0.3 seconds. “The result in qualifying is not ideal”, said Niklas on Friday evening. “Everything has to work on this track, because each tens of a second can make a huge difference in the rankings and overtaking is very difficult during the race.”
The German started from midfield into the pre-races on Saturday and was amongst the fastest despite changing conditions. A collision without his fault in the second run and a penalty in the third Heat threw the young German in his charge through the field back again. He had to put everything into the fourth and last race in order to secure a position for the Final. Niklas managed that impressively. He fought his way up into fifth place with great lap times and a lot of fighting spirit. Just ahead of crossing the finishing line, he made space for his team-mate Sami Taoufik for him to have a better chance in winning the championship title. Unfortunately, Niklas position was miscalculated, because with P6 the German was missing one point only to enter the big Final.
“That´s tragic to miss the entry into the Final by one single point”, says the 14-year-old after the race. “But I am really happy for Sam and the team to have won the title and that I was able to contribute to that. The weekend did not go to plan at all. But in the end I was once again amongst the fastest drivers all weekend.
As one of the youngest Rookies this year, Niklas Krütten established himself amongst the world´s fastest and best pilots in the Senior-Kart right from the start. The young German emphasized his talent with a few Top-10 results, a 4th overall finish and a second place in qualifying at the European rounds in Finland and Spain, underlining his future ambitions more than impressively.
Niklas is now excited about his next steps in Motorsport: “After the summer break, we will start with the plans and preparations for next year. We will test a few things and see, which step in Motorsport we will go. I will always remain closely to Karting though. There are a few very important people whom I owe a lot and without them I would never have succeeded. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them sincerely: Christian and Harald Dischner, Bernd Mahr, Darko Solgat, Dario Anastasi, Paolo and Marino Spinozzi, Jamie Croxford, Ole Haugard, Ricky Flynn, Micky Higham and Kris Baillie.“