Progression run after debacle
The conclusion of the Kart EM in Le Mans brought no luck to Jasin Ferati. After bad qualifying, a technical problem and an accident, three good races were not enough to turn the tide in his favor.
A week after the DEKM podium in Kerpen, Jasin Ferati was confronted with all facets of motorsport at Le Mans. Since he didn't manage a flawless lap in qualifying, the Winterthur kart driver, as 53rd in the field of 70, put himself in an almost hopeless starting position for the desired final participation in the last European Championship race. But it got even worse: In the first qualifying race he had to be content with the thankless spectator role because the engine would not start, and in the second he was stopped early by an accident.
Although these incidents caused him to fall back to last place in the intermediate standings, he didn't give up and showed his potential. In the remaining races he fought his way up impressively. He improved by six places in the third race in difficult conditions on rain tires, by nine positions even in the fourth on fresh slicks and by another six in the fifth race, in which he only missed the fastest lap by five hundredths of a second. "With similar classifications at the beginning, I would have made it into the final despite the poor conditions," said the Swiss Millennium driver, annoyed.
Even more frustrated was the British Sauber protégé Dexter Patterson, who had traveled to Le Mans as the sovereign European Championship leader, but after an early collision in the final he had to watch two Italians make the decision between themselves. Rookie Gabriele Mini secured the day's win, while Lorenzo Travisanutto, who was five years older, took second place and became European Champion.
Ferati will have an opportunity to make amends at the OC World Championships in Finland at the beginning of September. After a few days of vacation, he'll be back at the beginning of August with the third event of the German Electric Kart Championship (DEKM) on his favorite track in Genk, Belgium. In this internationally well-observed series, the man from Winterhur is in 3rd place overall with intact title chances behind the Germans Lukas Wlöner and Joël Sturm.
CIK-FIA-OK-EM: Final standings after Le Mans: 1st Lorenzo Travisanutto (It) 97th 2nd Gabriele Mini (It) 84th 3rd Dexter Patterson (Gb) 82nd 4th Taylor Barnard (Gb) 49th 5th Dilano vant'Hoff (Ho) 6/38 Dino Beganovic (Sd) 7/34 Juho Valtanen (Fi) 8/29 Pedro Hiltbrand (Sp) 9/29 Luigi Coluccio (It) 10/28 Nikolas Pirttilahti (Fu) 28 – Also: 37. Jasin Ferati (Sz). – 76 drivers classified.
DEKM, Interim result after Kerpen: 1. Luka Wlöner (De) 133 points (with discarded results 108). 2. Joël Sturm (De) 96 (81). 3. Jasin Ferati (Sz) 83 (71). 4. Bradley Barrett (GB) 77 (64). 5. Lin Chen Han (Taiwan) 66 (57). 6. Jort Coone (Ho) 59 (52). 7. Joël Affolter (Ho) 56 (47). 8.Benjamin Carterey (It) 49 (40).