With record entries and a fast track that is still unfamiliar to most competitors, the second round of the 2023 WSK Super Master Series at Franciacorta presented some interesting challenges. The Parolin Motorsport team did not miss the opportunity to work on a track with very different charac-teristics than the one in Lonato, the setting for the first three events of the season. The Bassano del Grappa factory team achieved good results: P4 in KZ2 with Francesco Celenta, P5 in OK with Rene Lammers, top 10 in OK-Junior with Jack Illife, and P6 and P9 in Mini for Bruno Gryc and William Calleja.

“The weekend in Franciacorta was very useful to continue the work started since the beginning of the season. I am very satisfied with the competitiveness of the Parolin chassis in all categories, from Mini to KZ2. Parolin Racing Kart was the second best-represented brand with 61 chassis en-tered in Franciacorta”, commented Marco Parolin. “It is nice to see the increase of private teams using our equipment. As far as the official team is concerned, we came close to the podium in OK with Lammers, a contender during the whole weekend, delayed by his start from the outside lane in the Final and hampered at the beginning of the race, while in KZ2, Celenta recovered after a difficult Qualifying to reach 4th in the Final. In OK-Junior, Iliffe’s pole position in his group, then his 10th place in the Final, as well as Costoya’s weekend at the top, are to be noted. In Mini, we managed to place two drivers, Gryc and Calleja, in the Top 10. We should also note the performances of our partners, AV Racing on the podium with Shen in Mini, and Modena Kart who were very competitive with Orlov, winner of a heat for his second race in KZ2”.

Strong comebacks in KZ2
Francesco Celenta regained 18 places in the heats and moved up another nine positions in the Fi-nal to finish 4th. Lorenzo Travisanutto had recovered 14 places in total, but did not finish the first lap of the Final.

Lammers already at the front in OK
2nd in Qualifying, Rene Lammers won and finished 2nd in every heat until the Prefinal. He fought hard in the Final, and crossed the finish line in 4th place before being classified 5th. Solid during the heats, Anatoly Khavalkin had to retire in the Prefinal before taking back six places in the Final de-spite a badly positioned front fairing which cost him 5”. Miguel Costa discovered the equipment and the team by regaining 21 positions during the heats. His performance was interrupted by a retire-ment in the Prefinal while he was fighting for a top 10.

OK-Junior: Illife in great shape
3rd in Qualifying among the 105 participants, Jack Illife negotiated the tough heats and regained four places to enter the Final top 10. Christian Costoya was 5th in Qualifying and shone in four of his five heats. 2nd in his Prefinal, he did not finish the Final, but remained 4th in the championship. Zac Drummond started in 10th place, completed two good heats, but retired in the last one. 6th on the Final finish line, a 5” penalty sent him back to 15th position.

Gryc and Calleja defend well in Mini
After an average Qualifying, Bruno Gryc took back 25 places in his heats before gaining another seven places in the Final to finish 6th. William Calleja showed his fighting qualities during the heats and in the Prefinal before recovering after a difficult start in the Final and finishing 9th. These two drivers each moved up more than 20 places in the championship.

Again in Lonato, the first round of the WSK Super Master Series gave Parolin Motorsport the opportunity to start its KZ2, OK and OK-Junior drivers as well as its Mini drivers in a very competitive situation. 334 drivers from 51 nations competed in the South Garda Karting.

This first weekend of February confirmed the excellent potential of Parolin Racing Kart chassis in all categories. Alessandro Truchot was more confident and was remarkably consistent at the front in the Under 10 category, finishing 4th. Christian Costoya in 4th and Zac Drummond in 10th spearheaded the Italian brand in the 90-strong OK-Junior class. In KZ2, Lorenzo Travisanutto concluded on a positive note with a Final climb of 16 positions. Francesco Celenta was 10th in Qualifying and 5th in his Prefinal.

In OK, the two young Junior drivers, Anatoly Khavalkin and René Lammers, made significant progress during the Qualifying Heats to finish 4th and 10th respectively in the Final.

William Calleja started well with his 7th fastes time in Mini, but was delayed by a retirement in the last heat. He nevertheless saved his weekend by regaining 14 positions in the Final. Bruno Gryc did not benefit from his progress in the heats because of an incident halfway through the Final. Dan Allemann qualified in 25th position out of 74 drivers.

Alessandro Truchot was much faster than the previous week, taking the Mini U10 pole position and leading the heats with two wins. He fought hard for the Final top three before finishing 4 hundredths off the podium.

“The first WSK Super Master Series allowed us to run our drivers in all categories and to get a positive overall result”, explained Marco Parolin. “Against very strong competition the Parolin Motorsport team performed very well and recorded important data for the rest of the season. We have already noticed very interesting potential in several of our drivers. The atmosphere will be serious in the upcoming competitions, starting with the second round of the WSK Super Master Series in Franciacorta in less than two weeks, which we will approach with greater ambition.”

Last weekend, the first race of the year gathered five Mini drivers from the Parolin Motorsport team on the Lonato circuit during the WSK Champions Cup. It was an opportunity for the youngsters to get back to racing after a short break. The temperatures were still cool at the end of January, but the weather was still good. The first results were positive, with Australian William Calleja finishing in the top five and young French-American Alessandro Truchot finishing in the top ten in the Under 10s.

“The Champions Cup was the start of our season with the Mini department of our team,” said Marco Parolin. “Among the novelties, we are happy with the new Mini U10, a category that allows less experienced drivers to compete at a high level. It was also the first meeting with the new ho-mologated engines, so it was an important occasion to continue the development of the new power units in collaboration with our partner TM Kart and MA Engines. Overall, we gathered a lot of useful information and are looking forward to the upcoming events.”

The Parolin Motorsport team worked well to achieve a very satisfactory overall performance. A big congratulations to William Calleja for his perseverance which allowed him to regain 10 places in the Final and reach a rewarding 5th position. Manuel Miguez Gayoso moved up 11 places during the meeting while Alessandro Truchot was solid in the top 10 of Mini U10.

The WSK Super Master Series will start next weekend in Lonato with the reinforced presence of Parolin Motorsport in KZ2, OK and OK-Junior in addition to Mini.