By successfully navigating his way through the many pitfalls of the second round of the FIA Karting European Junior Championship without crashing, Christian Costoya demonstrated Parolin Motorsport’s current level of performance right up to the foot of the podium. The solidity of his performance despite the unpredictable weather conditions of the first two days of competition kept the team’s confidence high, and we can celebrate with him as he leaves Val d’Argenton in 2nd place in the provisional standings.
However, it was a weekend full of confusion in France. Extremely changeable track conditions on Friday and Saturday meant that Parolin Motorsport’s objectives at Val d’Argenton were thwarted by circumstance. The potential of the official Parolin / TM Karts had improved further since the previous race, the Champions of the Future Euro Series. Qualifying Practice set the trend with the arrival of rain during the session. This repeated itself several times during the Qualifying Heats, complicating the progress of the competition.
In OK, Vivek Kanthan was the fastest at 13th in Qualifying Practice. The young American confirmed his position in the heats, finishing in the top 10 each time and taking two 3rd places. 16th at the start of the Final, he lost places towards the end of the race and finished 21st. Zac Drummond also completed several heats in the top five and confirmed his 5th place in Super Heat B with the fastest lap of the race. Unfortunately, he was forced to retire at the start of the Final. Miguel Costa, Jenson Graham and Alp Aksoy also posted encouraging results, although they failed to qualify for the Final.
Christian Costoya put in the team’s best performance in OK-Junior thanks to his superb consistency. 3rd in Qualifying, he took two wins in the heats and secured 2nd place with the fastest race lap in the Super Heat. He put up a strong fight for the Final podium before finishing 4th. As a result, he moved up to 2nd in the Championship. William Calleja was undeniably gaining in competitiveness. After some solid heats, he just missed out on the top 10 in his Super Heat, but had to retire after a few laps in the Final. Efim Derunov made up 13 places in the heats before retiring, but was still too far away from a possible Final.
“We’ve come back from Val d’Argenton with a bitter taste in our mouths,” said Marco Parolin. “The European Championship weekend was one of the most difficult of the season because of the difficult weather conditions. The team worked very hard to be competitive in all circumstances and we deserved much better results. Unfortunately, the Final results weren’t quite up to scratch, although in the OK-Junior class Costoya was rewarded for its consistency and finished 2nd in the Championship standings. It’s a pity that Calleja was hit at the start of the race; it would have been interesting to see his performance through to the end. In OK, Drummond was involved in contact at the first corner, after a fine Prefinal. The fastest lap was set by Marti, a privateer on a Parolin chassis, demonstrating the competitiveness of the equipment.”