Niklas Krütten with Top-10 result in European Championship in Sarno
Niklas Krütten had an impressive show last weekend: at the opening round of the CIK-FIA European Championship in Sarno (Italy), the 14-year-old Rookie excited and was consistently within the top and fastest drivers. In the Final, he secured 10th place in an internationally established starting grid of a total of 70 drivers – his best season finish to date.
The young German was already fast during Free Practice and was expected to be amongst the quickest. 165 elite drivers from around the world found their way to Sarno, 70 from 20 nations competed in the Senior-Kart-Category. Even though, the 14-year-old did not get the perfect lap together during qualifying, he still set the 11th fastest overall time with only 1.5tenth missing to Pole Position. This was a good starting point for the upcoming pre-races, the so-called “Heats”.
Niklas had to race in a total of four Heats to qualify for his ticket of the best 34 to enter the Final on Sunday. And the Rookie was burning in the Senior-Kart. With the positions of 3, 6, 4 and 2 he was consistently right at the front and showed an impressive performance against much more experienced competitors. The only setback was the latterly given penalty and the loss of his sixth place due to a damaged front bumper.
However, the 14-year-old German still had a good starting position with P12 for the Final race on Sunday. Niklas proofed once more, that he has established himself amongst a short period of time to compete and fight with the fastest drivers in the Senior-Kart. After a difficult Start, Niklas was running wide at the outer track and lost some positions. But he fought his way back with well thought-through overtaking moves to come home in a great and remarkable 10th place.
“This time, everything came together and we almost had a perfect weekend”, said Niklas on Sunday evening. “We were competitive right from the start and both my team Ricky Flynn Motorsport and One Engines gave me a perfect Kart. Without the time penalty, we maybe could have achieved a podium finish, but I am still very pleased to come 10th in a European Championship. This was a result long coming and it feels great.”