Philipp Walsdorf beim KNAF Wintercup

On February 11 and 12, 2017, the first race of the KNAF Iame X30, the Dutch championship, took place in Genk, Belgium. The so called wintercup showed up what wintercup means. Already on Friday the racers had the opportunity to do some free practice facing temperatures around zero degrees. Philipp Walsdorf could find his place inside the driver field and compete with his more experienced teammates. So he was looking forward to racing on Saturday again. Early Saturday morning held a surprise for the drivers looking out of the window: five centimetres of fresh snow lay on the landscape around Genk. Few hard-nosed drivers would not keep from driving but the CV-Racing Team around team manager Christian Voss decided to let the karts inside the tent because new findings under these conditions would not be very helpful. During the day conditions became better so around noon karts and drivers could get on the track for the first free practice of the day. Philipp Walsdorf did not find his performance level at once so he needed the second free practice session to sort himself. He ended qualifying practice eleventh which did not really satisfy him.

Sunday morning was cold again but without any snow- or rainfall. Nevertheless the track did not get dry before noon. So free practice and the first qualifying heat took place on rain tyres. After having a short contact with another kart which sent him onto the grass, which came out under the snow and a little pirouette caused by trying to pass another driver Philipp ended the race ninth. During the formation lap he had hit the driver in front of him a bit too heavy so Philipp´s front spoiler got out of position which was penalized by ten seconds he was listed sixteenth. Second qualifying heat already ran on slicks and ended on position ten for Philipp Walsdorf.

This meant having to start from position thirteen in the final race. Fifteen thrilling and exciting laps with well worth seeing battles later Philipp Walsdorf could look back on an instructive weekend. Ending the final race seventh he could collect valuable points for the championship and after adding up the points of the final race and the qualifying heats he is ninth in the overall standing of the championship.

„I am not fully satisfied, there was more to achieve“ Philipp said after the race „but there were one or the other mistake too much“.

Second race weekend of the KNAF Iame X30 cup will take place on March, 11 and 12 in Mariembourg, France. Philipp wants to increase his performance there.