at European Championship Finale

Young British karter Kazeem Manzur continued his run of excellent form to take a third and sixth position at the Finals of the concluding round of the European Karting Championships, held at Salbris, France.

Kazeem joined a field of forty other drivers who enjoyed fine weather over the entire weekend meeting.  Immediately on the pace, Kazeem set the fourth fastest time in qualifying, just over a tenth off the pole time.

Starting from third position in the both the Heats, Kazeem drove strongly to finish second in the first heat and fourth in the second. This earned him third position for the Pre Final and he found himself in illustrious company, with European Champion Marco Ardigo and Italian Champion Gary Catt ahead of him and multiple World Champion Davide Fore alongside. Significantly, the top eight was dominated by Tony Kart drivers – only Kazeem and Fore were not using their machinery.

Kazeem drove a great Pre Final to finish third, beating David Fore in the process. This was to be the only podium finish for a non Tony Kart driver. For the Final Kazeem received a new engine which proved to not work as well as his first and he finished in sixth position. Nevertheless it was another strong showing from Kazeem, who once again showed maturity beyond his 16 years of age to put in a consistently strong performance all weekend.

Kazeem finished eighth overall in the final European Championship standings with 44 points, a superb achievement for a karter in his first season of racing in the highest echelons of the sport. He is now focused on the most prestigious race in the world Karting calendar: the World Karting Championships, to be held at Mariembourg, Belgium over the weekend of 23 September.