Francesco Conti comes out Victorious at Round 5 of King of Europe ProSeries!

IMG_5773 copy

After almost 1 month after Round 4 in Poland, it was time for Francesco Conti to be on the move again, this time towards Hungary, for Round 5 of the ProSeries and Round 2 of the King of Touge, scheduled to take place in the same location, on the Belko Touge.

The Liberty Walk kitted, Supercharged M3 E92 GT4 arrived at Belko Touge Friday afternoon, just in time for the technical inspection. Even with the 95DB limit imposed, the car got cleared no problems whatsoever, thanks to preliminary tests done at the garage before coming to the event. Going into this round, Francesco Conti was sitting in 4^th place overall. After taking 7 podiums in 8 events back in 2013, Francesco knew he had to make a strong comeback in this second half of the season.

IMG_5388 copy

After the early Saturday morning briefing, the track was open for practice. With a total of 6 corners, and quite serious elevation comparing the start line and finish line, this was not going to be easy by any means. Francesco quickly got used to the layout, and he was pushing the car further and further each lap. Qualifying was scheduled as always for late Saturday evening. Running against a strong line-up of drivers, Francesco Conti managed to qualify 7^th overall, just over 3 points short of P1.This result was obtained straight from the first run, and Francesco recorded the Highest Attack Speed, of 108 kph, a speed that seemed unattainable in the first half of the day.

IMG_6082 copy

Leaving aside the downpour on Friday, the weather for the remainder of the weekend was perfect, and the scenario was set for infinite clouds of smoke to be released upon the track, much to the joy of the thousands of people who came to see the race. Due to his good qualifying result, Francesco Conti automatically got a bye through to the Top16, where he would have to go up against the winner of the Top32 battle between Benjamin Boulbes and Marcin Mospinek. Boulbes was eventually the one to advance to Top16, and everyone was looking forward to the reiteration of this already classic battle, between the Italian/European Champion and the French Champion. Results have varied over time, but this time Francesco Conti was not about to be stopped so early in the race. Francesco won the 1^st run 6-4 , and even though they were tied on their second run, Boulbes was now out of the race.

Things were not about to get any easier for Francesco Conti, as he would now have to go up against the young PUZ Drift Team driver, Krzystof Romanowski. With a clear advantage in Horsepower/Weight ratio for Romanowski, it would all eventually go down to pure driving skill. Romanowski made a huge mistake on his lead run, and Francesco just managed to avoid contact, and so the score was 10-0 for Conti. Not phased by the result in the first run, Francesco continued to drive hard, and he got 6-4 on his chase run, thus allowing him to advance to the semifinals. His next opponent would be the other PUZ driver, Grzegorz Hypki, much more experienced and skilled in comparison to his younger teammate. But Francesco seemed to be unstoppable, as he drove his car to the absolute limit, producing so much smoke that Hypki was totally unable to see where he was going in the last section of the track. While Francesco crossed the finish line, and opened his door, with a clear adrenaline rush going on, he was shocked to see Hypki crashed in the unforgiving forest surrounding the touge. Even so, the Polish team quickly brought the car back to the paddock and fixed it in no time, but there was little left for Grzegorz to do. By the end of the 2^nd run, he thanked Conti for the amazing experience, and Francesco was now heading back to the paddock to prepare for his first final battle of 2014.

Excitement levels were going through the roof in Belko Touge, and everyone was keen to see two of the most amazing drift spec BMWs in Europe go head to head , with two of the most succesfull drifters in Europe behind the wheel. Francesco Conti, in the Liberty Walk, Supercharged M3 E92 GT4, and Calin Ciortan, in his Turbocharged M3 E30. Calin had the upper hand in terms of horsepower and weight, but Francesco Conti was not about to let victory slip through his fingers at this stage. Francesco did an incredible job by chasing Calin in the 1^st run, and the judges dictated a 6-4 in his favor. On his lead run, the score was 5-5. So, for the first time in 2014, Francesco Conti had won a King of Europe event, once again reinforcing his status as one of Europe’s leading drifters: ” I am very happy I won this weekend, I had some really tough opponents, and I will do my best to repeat this result by the end of the season, so that I can finish 2014 with a second King of Europe ProSeries Title under my name”.

Round 6 of the Monster Energy King of Europe Drift ProSeries is up shortly, and will be held on the Tokol Airport, near to Budapest, in Hungary.

IMG_6279 copy