The race for the championship is heating up, even though this was just the second round of the 2014 Monster Energy King of Europe Drift ProSeries. After two days of practice on the Castelletto di Branduzzo race track, the main action was set for today, with qualifying early in the morning and the Top32 later on in the afternoon.
The three series judges were not going to have it easy, even though the number of drivers that came to Round 2 was approximately the same as the number of drivers in Austria. Settled in italian territory, and with thousands of italian fans on site, it was clear that local drivers were having high expectations on the final result. If Adam Kerenyi dominated the qualifying session in Austria, this time the odds were in favour of Benjamin Boulbes, who took 1st place overall.
Top32 was as fierce and intense as it gets, and it was a pretty often occurrence that the judges had to opt for an One More Time, in order to take a final and correct decision. As 2013 Monster Energy King of Europe Championship Winner Francesco Conti had a great start of the weekend, no one would expect him to be put out of the race in Top8, after a differential breakdown mid-battle against Adam Frank. Moving on to the semifinals, the audience had the opportunity to witness some top of the notch driving coming from one of their italian favorites, Nicolo Rosso, part of the Dotz Drift Team, who would go on to win against Monster Energy Athlete Steve Biagioni. In the other semifinal, Kerenyi maintained a constant rythm against Adam Frank, and so he was advancing to his second consecutive final battle of the year.
The battle for third place was somewhat controversial, with Adam Frank and Steve Biagioni making contact in both their runs, but in the end, the judges decided in favour of the Team Cartu Drifting driver. Although the italian fans had high hopes for Nicolo Rosso, and even though he managed to obtain a 6-4 in the final battle of the weekend against Adam Kerenyi, a small fire caused by an oil leakage inside the engine bay of the italian driven S14 would go against the crowds desire, seeing Adam Kerenyi get his second consecutive victory of the season. With Adam Kerenyi in 1st place overall and Nicolo Rosso in 2nd, this brings Dotz Drift Team in the main light at Round 2, and it seems like the Team Championship is going to be evenly as fierce as the individualchampionship this year.
Round 3 of the 2014 Monster Energy King of Europe Drift ProSeries is set to take place in the UK, late June, at Lydden Hill, where there will most certainly be an invasion of British drifters, anxiously waiting to measure their strength against Europe’s finest drifters, all of which are pursuing the same goal: Becoming King Of Europe.