Swedish KWC qualifier

Sunday, March 29th, Sweden hosted its national qualifier series for the Kart World Championship (KWC). It was the very first edition, and Swedes seemed to have only joined the international circuit at last year’s KWC event in Brazil.

Place of the event was Mattias Andersson – Go-karthallen in Linköping, Sweden. For international standards this is a very small circuit, as top drivers are able to lap in under 18 seconds.
To get an impression;

(more videos to be found here and here)

The format: race day consisted of four qualification heats, two semifinals and one final to determine the winner of the free entry in KWC 2015. Fourteen drivers participated.

Each driver was allowed to drop the worst result from the qualification round and after the qualification heats there were two drivers with three heat wins each.

Rickard Javanainen and Lars Carlsson were therefore pole sitters in the two semifinals. Both drivers won their semifinal and the final became a close fight. The gap between the two was never more than half a second, but in the end Javanainen was victorious, followed by Carlsson just behind him. Niclas Ihreskog finished in third place.Best lap time in the final was 17,811 and, and no less than four drivers were seperated by only eight thousands of a second by best lap time.

Rickard Javanainen won the event and the free entry ticket, and is thus expected to participate in the KWC in Italy this summer.

This was the first ever qualifier in Sweden ever and they expect to have a bigger event next year with more drivers.

Thanks to Glenn Gyllin for making this happen!