SuperPole Qualifying Kickstarts the Canadian Open

Friday at the ICAR Complexe in Mirabel, Quebec the Canadian Open went into full gear with SuperPole Qualifying for all categories.

Each class had eight minutes on track to set their best time with the top six advancing to the SuperPole sessions where they were given two hot laps of open track to showcase their speed and determine the CKN Fast Qualifiers.

With rain lingering in the area, especially in the late afternoon, the tensions were high but thankfully all of the Qualifying and a few scheduled heat races were completed just in time before the skies opened up. The only thing that wasn’t completed was the end-of-day podium ceremonies to celebrate the top three qualifiers in each category. Nonetheless, the drivers will still receive their prizes.

The focus points this weekend are the four Rotax Max categories vying for tickets to the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals.

Rotax Senior has 29 entered this weekend and it was very close in provisional qualifying. Olivier Bedard (Premier/OTK) and Laurent Legault (BCR/Kosmic) were at the top, separated by less than a tenth of a second but from third to nineteenth it was less than a half-second of separation and some drivers who just narrowly missed out on the SuperPole top six.

Bedard took the provisional pole but in the shootout, Legault was the fastest man on track and will start each of the heat races from the pole position. Arnaud Sabourin (BCR/BirelART) was an impressive third place, followed by Cole Hooton (PSL/BirelART), Lucas Nanji (HMP/Kart Republic) and Charles Robin (SH/SodiKart).

This weekend may be one of the best Rotax Micro-Mini Max groups we’ve ever witnessed in Canada. There are 23 entered this weekend including a number of drivers who have spent this season competing in Europe. It’s going to be a brawl for the win on Sunday, with the scraps starting this Friday afternoon.

The top four in SuperPole were separated by less than a tenth of a second with Edward Kennedy (TRT/Energy Kart) just ending out provisional polesitter Antoine Lemieux (REM/Kosmic), Brando Londono (HMP/Kart Republic), and Ilie Tristan Crisan (Premier/TonyKart). Olivier Chasse (HMP/Kart Republic and Rayan Ghandour (KR Sport/Kosmic) completed the top six.

Antoine Lemieux nearly had two SuperPoles on Friday as he’s also competing in Rotax Junior but Lucas Deslongchamps (HMP/Kart Republic) was able to better his time to score the pole position. The REM/Kosmic’s were really moving in Junior Max as they took positions two, three and four as Olivier Mrak and Frederique Lemieux will fill in row two for the heats while Major Makovskis (PSL/BirelART) and Jacob Messely (ETI Racing/CL Kart) completed the top six.

Making his first start in Canada this season after spending the summer on the Euromax tour, Lucas Pernod (PSL/BirelART) blistered off a wicked lap time in Rotax DD2 qualifying to lead by 0.288 seconds. Olivier Bedard (Premier/OTK), Gianluca Savaglio (PSL/BirelART), Yu Chen Ye (ETI Racing/CL Kart) and Cederic Cataphard (CRT/BirelART) were pretty close within the top five but need to find a little extra pace if they want to chase down Pernod.

The rest of the fast qualifiers on Friday were Marc Andre Levesque (SH/SodiKart) in DD2 Masters, Giulio Berlinguet (BirelART) in Briggs Cadet, Alexandre Goulet (Formula K) in Briggs Junior, Ari Korkodilos (OTK) in Briggs Senior, Mike Larouche (Formula K) in Briggs Masters and Davide Greco (BirelART) in Open Shifter.

Everyone will compete in three heat races on Saturday to determine the starting grids for Sunday’s PreFinal races, setting the tone for the Sunday afternoon Finale races to determine the 2023 Canadian Open champions.