26th August 2011

The "U18" World Championship and Academy Trophy land in Normandy, at Essay - from the CIK-FIA

Round 2 of the 2011 CIK-FIA Academy Trophy will take place this weekend at Essay

Further to a thundering start in Italy, at Ortona, marked by exciting and hard-fought races, the CIK-FIA “U18” World Championship and Academy Trophy will continue their tour on 26, 27 and 28 August in France.

It is in Normandy, on the circuit of Essay, that Drivers from the 5 continents will gather. Since it hosted two CIK-FIA Championship events (2007 and 2009) the Essay circuit has been altered, with a modified radius and the widening of the first corner which had proved particularly difficult to get through at the starts.

Leading the Championship although he did not win the final in Italy (thanks to a new rule by which some points are initially allocated at each event further to the qualifications), the Finn Pyry Ovaska (Maranello) will obviously try to pull away from his opponents and in particular the Briton Matthew Graham (Zanardi), winner at Ortona. Betrayed by his chain while he seemed on his way to victory in Italy, Antonio Maria Giovinazzi (PCR) will do his best to confirm that he is very fast and to erase the bad memory of the opening event. On their home land – and not far from the headquarters of their chassis make (Sodi) – France’s Anthoine Hubert and Léo Roussel should also be at the front.

As regards the very cosmopolitan Academy Trophy in which 43 nations are represented the public’s attention should be focused on Albany’s Aleksander Ndrio and on the Frenchman Dorian Boccolacci, each winner of a race in Italy, as well as on the Spaniard Diego Rodriguez, the Brit Ben Barnicoat, France’s Esteban Ocon, the Greek Filippos Kalesis and Monaco’s Charles Leclerc, not forgetting the young ambassador of the “FIA Women in Motor Sport” Commission, Lucile Cypriano.

Successfully launched in 2010, the educational supplement to the competition called “EduKart” and supported by the FIA Institute for Safety and Sustainability, will submit for the first time this year the Drivers to a small theoretical exam on Friday morning. After this pedagogical session, the track will be open for the first practice on Friday afternoon. Qualifying practice and heats are scheduled for Saturday 27 August. As for Sunday, It will mainly be dedicated to the final phase races, with two prefinals (including one with a reversed starting grid) and a long final of 30 kilometres for the 34 qualified “U18” World Championship competitors, as well as two races of 20 kilometres each for the Academicians. All the results of the event will be published in real time on www.cikfia.com.