Top Ten Chance for Armstrong in Italy This Weekend

Top Ten Chance for Armstrong in Italy This Weekend

Young Kiwi karter Marcus Armstrong has a chance to move into the KF class top ten at the final round of this year's WSK Master Series in Italy this weekend.

The 14-year-old from Christchurch, who drives for the works Tony Kart team, has shown top six pace at all three previous rounds and having finished eighth at the most recent round at Muro Leccesse earlier this month, heads to the Sarno circuit near Naples this week confident he can improve on his current series points standing -13th.

"Sarno will be fantastic," he said on Wednesday. "It is one of my favourites, and the field will be more spread out as the track is very challenging and long.

"In terms of results, we'll continue to build on the last event. I hope our speed won't be an issue, it will be down to track position and being in the right place at the right time."

Though he struggled to come up with a workable kart set-up early on at the third round, the former New Zealand champion had things sorted come Finals time, finishing sixth in his Pre-Final and eighth in the Final to move up the series rankings in his class from 15th to 13th.

It was his best 'official' finish of the series so far, having crossed the line 10th at the first round, and classified 11th after a time penalty (after crossing the line fourth) at the second.

Heading into this weekend's series final the KF class is being led by Pole, Karol Basz, from Armstrong's Tony Kart teammate Nicklas Nielsen from Sweden and third round winner Alexander Vartanyan from Russia.

Basz looks like a shoe-in for the series' KF class title with a 40 point lead over Nielsen, who failed to finish the Final at the third round.

Armstrong, meanwhile, could easily get into the top ten, being only 15 points behind current 10th placed Felice Tiene, and - should he find himself on the podium - might even make it to sixth, a place currently held by Pedro Hiltbrand with 80 points, 33 more than Armstrong.

ENDS

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