Anthony Kumpen new leader in championship

PK Carsport and its drivers returned with mixed feelings from the second meeting of the Nascar Whelen Euro Series, which was held in Brands Hatch (UK). A podium finish in the second race saw Anthony Kumpen taking the lead in the driver rankings of the Elite 1 championship.

The tight timing imposed by the British Nascar Whelen Euro Series meant that the drivers of PK Carsport had very little time to adopt their cars to the two kilometre long Indy-track in Brands Hatch. Yet Anthony Kumpen and Bert Longin managed to qualify sixth and seventh in the 28 cars on the starting grid.

‘In races that only last half an hour, there is not a lot of time to move forward’, Kumpen stated afterwards. ‘Certainly not on a track as short as this one on which it’s hard to overtake. On top of that, we saw the safety car coming out a few times, reducing even further the time left for action.’
Despite all this, Kumpen managed to move into fourth position. Bert Longin was less fortunate though. He got hit by Christophe Bouchut, caused a flat tire on his Chevrolet, thus taking away any chances on a good result.

In race 2, Kumpen had high ambitions starting from the first row on the grid. ‘Ander Vilarino took the pole and I followed his line, explains Kumpen. ‘Together we managed to pull away from the others, so I succeeded in holding on to the second place. A good result for the championship, where I am now leading the pack.’

Bert Longin however missed his date with miss Fortune once again. Starting 17th (the places on the grid are determined by the fastest lap in race 1), the man from Leuven moved up to the 13th spot, at which point he got hit in the side again, once more inflicting a flat tire. ‘Frustrating’, says Longin. ‘Leaving the pit lane after my tire change, I entered the track just behind Vilarino and Anthony. I was able to follow their pace, so we certainly had the speed to finish on the podium.’

In Elite 2, Maxime Dumarey marked a good result with a fifth and third place finish, moving him up to the second place in the championship. Last but not least, Jerry De Weerdt finished tenth in the first race, nicely moving forward during the race. As a consequence, PK Carsport also won the team standings for the second consecutive time. A nice reward for all the hard work the whole team put in, especially keeping in mind this championship is still pretty new to them.