Victory for Rotax Praga Kart Racing at the Rotax Max Euro Challenge

Last weekend was the 2nd round of the Rotax Max Euro Challenge at the 1.265m
long circuit in Castelletto (Italy). Martin Pierce (Ireland) and Max Fleischmann
(Germany) were racing for the team in the DD2 Master and DD2 class. With an
incredible job in the prefinal and final Martin Pierce won in the DD2 Masters class
just in front of four times world champion Christiano Morgado (South Africa).
During the test sessions on wednesday and thursday the team, together with the support
from HRS Racing Engines, was able to find a good setup for the chassis as well as for the
engines. It was just necessary to optimise the Chassis for a lot of grip at the circuit in the
Italian sun. In the qualifying practice Martin Pierce had a problem with the power valve and
because of this he finished on 36th. Max Fleischmann was lucky to drive even one fast lap
before his rear hub broke in lap 5, so he was able to finish in 15th position. Both drivers
normally are not very good “qualifying drivers”, so the whole team felt confident for the
upcoming heats on saturday. It started to rann friday night, the track was dry again, but it
had a completely different grip level in the heats.
Due to two smaller crashs Martin Pierce was able to complete the heats on 13th, 18th and
14th position. With these results he had to make his way into the finals through the second
Chance race from pole position. In the second Chance race he lost a few places, but still
made his way into the final in 5th position, which is equal to the 33rd starting position in the
prefinal. Max Fleischmann was a little bit unlucky in the heats but still managed to finish
8th, 6th and 9th. So Max Fleischmann had to start from 11th position in the prefinal.
Max Fleischmann wanted to secure his second set of new tyres for the final to get the best
possible result in the final, so he started the prefinal with his tyres from the heats. In the
first few laps he gained a two places up to 9th position, but he made two mistakes and
because of this he ended up in 15th position at the end of the prefinal. Martin Pierce had
not a good start in the prefinal, but he did a very good job to win in the DD2 Masters class
in front of Christiano Morgado. In the most important race, the final, Max Fleisch