As the international motor racing season gradually returns from its winter hibernation, Pierre Ragues has returned to karting action at last weekend’s Winter Cup, the traditional start to the international karting season.

The legendary event took place as usual at South Garda karting circuit of Lonato for its 16th edition with a massive 256 entrants across the three categories – KF3, KF2 and KZ2. Pierre was among the 52 drivers in the ultra competitive KZ2 professional category and acquitted himself well in very skilled company.

Participating with a Sodikart and Maxter engine for the Racing Services team, Pierre started the weekend with initial practice which resulted immediately in engine problems. Eventually, Pierre found a good lap time, just 0.3s from the pole setting pace, which placed him in 25th position overall. The first qualifying heat on Friday saw Pierre in an elevated 11th position before a further improvement in the second round to ninth place following improvements to the set-up of the kart.

In Saturday’s heats, Pierre was 12th quickest and found himself in 19th spot for the pre-final which took place on Sunday afternoon. Rain made life a little more unpredictable for Sunday’s events and Pierre was caught up in a lot of the action.

From 19th, he crashed at the start of the pre-final and resumed down in 33rd place. With some sheer determination and making use of all his talent, he made up a staggering 22 places to be just outside the top ten but as the track began to dry up, with Pierre on wet weather tyres, ten karts on slick tyres were able to pass him, dropping him to 19th at the end. The final was even more disappointing for Pierre after he made contact with another kart and sustained irreparable front end damage that ended his race early.

Pierre said: “It was good to be back karting and the Winter Cup at Lonato is such a great and competitive event. This year marked the 16th running of the event but there none of the drivers of the KF1 and Super KF categories were eligible to participate so we found ourselves in serious company with the big guys! It was a very closely fought contest, as we all like it to be. The weekend preparations did not start well with some engine issues but we worked hard with the team to fix those issues and finesse the set-up to improve our times and overall positions. We had an improved day of qualifying on Saturday but the races were a bit of a lottery as the rain came down on Sunday. I was involved in an incident early on in the pre-final which dropped me back to 33rd place, but I was able to get a good rhythm to make my way back up to near the top ten. Unfortunately, the track started to dry quite quickly and a lot of the guys on slicks were able to pass me in the closing stages, so I only finished 19th. The final was one to forget after I was involved in a crash which damaged the kart and I was forced to retire from the race. Nevertheless, karting is such great fun and it really helps me in preparation for the racing season that starts next month.”