The ProSeries Kings are back!
After quite a long break, lasting 8 months, since the final round of the 2014 Monster Energy King of Europe Drift ProSeries, Europes finest drivers once again jumped behind the wheel of their savage machines, which had been extensively modified during the off-season.
While 2013 and 2014 kicked-off in Austria, near the city of Greinbach, for 2015 it was decided that the season opener would take everyone to Western Europe, in France, on the Anneau Du Rhin race track, right next to the border with Germany and Switzerland. This would mark the third consecutive year for King of Europe ProSeries in France, after two consecutive races at Bordeaux de Merignac in 2013 and 2014. With drivers becoming faster and faster each year, and with cars reaching almost unimaginable levels of development, a new challenge was needed, and Anneau du Rhin provided the desired background in terms of speed and difficulty.
Over 60 drivers registered for the race, once again showing the untamed hunger pro drifters had to get back on track after the long pause since last year. With three days scheduled at Anneau du Rhin, cars started coming in as early as Thursday evening, and by mid-day Friday the paddock was already filled with a seemingly endless line-up of extremely impressive machinery. Still, some of the regular King of Europe drivers didn’t manage to finish their cars in time for the race, which will probably cost them a lot in the long run, from a ranking point of view. Francesco Conti is building a new , extremely menacing machine, rumoured to come out at 1000 horsepower and less than 1000 kg in weight, but the car still hasn’t been tested, and it is expected to show up at Round 2 in Karpacz. Nicolo Rosso from Italy is also swapping in a new, more potent engine, after the SR20DET he previously had has pretty much held him up in his race for the title. Arpad Enekes is also rumoured to be developing a brand new car, but in the meantime he is still testing a new setup for his all carbon fiber Ford Mustang.
After inspection day and setting up the track and the paddock, Saturday morning it was time for pre-qualifying practice. Most of the drivers were still trying different approaches, speeds and lines in order to find the correct rythm of the track. The new judges for 2015, Vernon Zwaneveld and Michal Rzoska, both experienced professional drifters briefed the drivers regarding clipping-point positioning and ideal line for the track, and things were set in motion for the qualifying session. Utilizing both the two new judges and a newly developed telemetry system, the drivers lined up at the start line, approximately 1 km away from the finish line. With an attack zone that was 250 meters long, drivers were coming in hot towards the initiation zone, making for a very spectacular sight, even from far away.
The fastest driver of the day in Turn 1, clocked at an astonishing 149 km/h , was Adam Frank of team Cartu Drifting. The car seems to have undergone some serious improvements over the winter time, and Adam said there are still more to come. “I was having a hard time with the track on Friday evening, in my first runs, but I managed to figure out the correct approach on Saturday morning. People were telling me that I was attacking the first corner at a pretty high speed, and I am happy to get 1st place in qualifying this weekend” said Israeli driver Adam Frank after the official announcements were made.
Antoine Amar was giving the French fans high hopes for the weekend with his 2nd place ranking in the qualifying session. Behind the wheel of a Nissan RPS13, Antoine finished the session just two points shy of Adam Frank, with a top speed of 121 km/h. King of Europe veteran driver Norbert Kovacik, driving his same 2014 BMW M6, now considered to be even more underpowered than last year, was the second fastest driver of the weekend in qualifying, coming in at a speed of 143 km/h! Pretty spectacular for a just 500 horsepower car!
As expected, Laurent Cousin from France also threw down a good qualifying lap, in his Turbocharged BMW M3 E46, by scoring 82.86 points, just a slightly better performance than Calin Ciortan from Romania, who uses the exact same engine setup, but on an older BMW E30 chassis. After making an impressive run in King of Europe back in 2011, having competed in a few select events, Hungarian driver Szilvezster Gyorgy has been off the map for some time now for various reasons. But after just 2 or 3 practice runs he made it clear that he is back and dead serious about getting a good result this year. Driving a 2JZ powered Nissan RPS13, he made his way to 6th place on the qualifying list, with the highest average angle of the day: 40.8 degrees!
Swiss driver Nicolas Maunoir also made his way to the Top10 qualified drivers list, behind the wheel of a Nissan Skyline R34, which has had its original engine replaced with a Supercharged Ford Mustang unit. Talk about a strange swap!
Also resorting to American Muscle, the Hountondji brothers, Eli and Joe, managed to both qualify in 9th and 10th respectively. Both of them have seen competition in King of Europe in the past, but this weekend both of them seemed to be on fire, metaphorically that is, and something was about to go down. Denise Ritzmann was the only drift girl at the event, next to Karolina Pilarczyk, but nobody would have expected her to run such a smooth qualifying run with just 300 horsepower under the hood of her BMW E30. Even more unexpected to see her qualifying 11th, in front of King of Europe regulars Adam Kerenyi and Amerigo Monteverde.
Bringing back the Corolla AE86 on the map was Sven Bukhard. Fitted with an SR20DET engine, and rated at about 450 horsepower, this was one of the most agressive Hachirokus King of Europe has ever seen. And it just so happened to show up at the same time with, what most people consider to be, the most insane drift spec AE86 ever built: the LSX powered Driftworks DW86. Phil Morrison was excited for his first ever outing at King of Europe “This is my first time at King of Europe. It’s rather unusual for us to travel so far away from home, but I’m really excited to be here this weekend. The track is very cool, the competition looks like it means business, and we might be coming back in the near future for more KOE events”.
The British driver qualified in 18th place overall, just bellow the likes of Florian Zimmerman in the Audi V8 DTM and Massimo Checchin in his upgraded RWD Subaru Impreza. Christian Lewis squeezed in 22nd place, with an upgraded engine for the Nissan Skyline R33, and the promise of soon returning in a LS powered Nissan S14.
Everyone was staring at Matt Campling and his new Mazda MX5, which has taken over the engine from his old Nissan RPS13. That’s right, a JZ fitted to a small MX5. Surprisingly though, the car was working fine, with no serious issues, and Matt seemed to be communicating quite well with it! Steve Biagioni, who had previously had engine issues one week before the race also managed to qualify on the limit, and he might just come back to round 2 in Karpacz with a brand new car.
As the organizers carefully dispatched troops of media teams onto the track, and fans were starting to take the spectator area by assault, drivers were lining up for the Top32 battles on Sunday. Valentin Landrieu was quickly taken out of the race by Adam Frank in his 1000 horsepower BMW M3.
Massimo Checchin also used his years of experience to overthrow French driver David Meunier. German driver Oliver Harsch had some unexpected car issues and retired early in the competition, leaving Benoit Magoules to advance to the Top16. With the layout being an extremely demanding one, many drivers were knocked out of the race because of getting 0 points in both of their runs. Drivers like Eli Hountondji, Josip Sinadovic, Calin Ciortan, Timothee Stehlin, Junginger Gerson and Adrien Suty.
In the meantime Laurent Cousin had an unexpectedly tough time dealing with German driver Philip Jager, but eventually he managed to overpower his opponent and avdvance to the Top16. Both Sven Burkhard and Denise Ritzmann were doing quite well in the first runs, but scoring 0 on their second ones took them out of the race. Florian Zimmerman had a really tough time going up against Driftworks Ace driver Phil Morrison, and after just two runs the race was settled in favour of the British driver. Last but not least, Baggsy had to retire early on due to car problems, giving Antoine Amar the opportunity to advance to the next level.
As always, things started to heat up in the Top16. Adam Frank and Massimo Checchin also met in the first round in 2014, but in the Top32, and the result was going to be the same like last time, in favor of Adam Frank. Benoit Magoules just kept on impressing everyone, as he took out Swiss driver Raffaele Rusca .Even with more than 600 horsepower at hand, there was not much Laurent Cousin could do against Amerigo Monteverde and his new savage, LS powered Nissan S14.
Matt Campling got very lucky as Adam Kerenyi could not show up to the start line due to a major gearbox failure. Norbert Kovacik didn’t even break a sweat as he flew past Nicolas Jouard in the Top16. Everyone was expecting Hungarian driver Szilvezster Gyorgy to make his way up to the podium by the end of the weekend, but apparently Christian Lewis had other plans.
After 7-3 for the Hungarian in the first run, Christian sealed the deal with a 10-0 in the second one.
Nicolas Maunoir and Joe Hountondji had a pretty crazy battle, but eventually the LS powered S13 driven by Joe was awarded victory and was now moving on to the Top8. Phil Morrison pushed the boundaries of his mental AE86 slightly too far, as he scored a 0 in both of his runs, thus allowing French driver Antoine Amar to advance to the next battle stage.
Adam Frank looked like he was riding the wave so to say, getting an 8-2 in his first battle against Benoit Magoules made people think he might just get away with the big trophy for the weekend. But instead of playing things safe on the second run, he just went in with everything he had. And this is what made him drop two wheels of the track, thus taking him out of the competition much earlier than he had hoped for.
Matt Campling put on a good show in the Mazda MX5, as going up against a 600+ horsepower LS S14, driven by Amerigo Monteverde is no easy task by any standards. Still, this would be Matts final battle of the weekend, as Amerigo sealed the deal in both of their last two runs.
End of the weekend for Christian Lewis as well, who met his match, Norbert Kovacik, but was not able to extract any serious points out of the whole thing.
In the last battle of Top8, Joe Hountondji made a spectacular comeback after a 1-9 against Antoine Amar, and then getting a 10-0. Every single man in his crew was pumped up to hear the result and had also become contenders for the title for the weekend. Going for an One More Time in the battle between Benoit Magoules and Amerigo Monteverde meant the end of the race weekend for the french driver, who had run out of luck, with suffering a gearbox failure. Joe Hountondji could not keep up with Norbert Kovacik, who, after just two runs, secured his spot in the final battle.
As Benoit Magoules had serious car problems, and was not able to come to the startline, Joe Hountondji was awarded 3rd place overall.
In a clash of titans, with Amerigo Monteverde in his first King of Europe final ever, nobody could really tell who the event winner could be. Norbert Kovacik just barely squeezed in a small advantage on his first run, and on the second run boh drivers got 0 points, which means Norbert Kovacik was the new 2015 Monster Energy King of EuropeDriftProseries Round 1 winner!
In the meantime, Team DriftBrothers were appointed the best Team of the weekend, and we get the feeling that we will be definitely be seeing more of them in the near future.
Going over the series rankings, Norbert Kovacik is of course in the lead, with 128 points in total. Amerigo Monteverde is in 2nd, just 17 points behind. Joe Hountondji is 3rd, Benoit Magoules is 4th and Adam Frank is 5th overall, even with his best qualifying run adding up to the score. The Federal Tyres Challenge and the Motul Challenge are currently being lead by Norbert Kovacik, while the Dotz Tuning Wheels speed challenge is being lead by Adam Frank.