Defiant Cauchi makes strong come back in Melilli

Malta’s Rotax Max champion Adrian Cauchi produced a remarkable comeback in his Virtu Ferries Birel at the Pista del Sole in Melilli to finish fourth in class and fifth overall last Sunday after he was thrown into a spin in the second lap of the final race.

Had Cauchi opted to race in the over-30 category – assuming the regulations would have allowed it – he would have finished second in class behind Roberto Lino. Instead he preferred to compete in the fastest group.

The 10th round of the Sicilian Regional Championship turned into a very bumpy ride for Cauchi. The inclement weather that lighted the skies in Malta on Thursday evening before the race did the same in Syracuse.

Heavy thunderstorms and a lot of rain cleared the Pista del Sole of any rubber accumulation from previous races and rendered the track fairly slippery. The changing weather conditions and unreliable atmospheric pressure played havoc with the settings of the racing karts and their engines, but this obviously affected all karts and drivers.

On Friday, Cauchi and the other drivers present at the track had to call it a day because the rain came back.

Saturday was another mixed bag with good times and slow times as the climate kept changing.

On Sunday morning, Cauchi secured a place on the front row and claimed the second position on the starting grid for the pre-final race with a lap of 47.316 seconds, just 0.474 secs slower than reigning Sicilian champion Francesco Tomarchio who was on pole.

In the pre-final race, Cauchi’s second position was short-lived as Lucas Pace, the junior champion who was a close third, made a bold move and elbowed Cauchi at the very first corner. Cauchi lost momentum but just as he began to climb up the field, he was nudged again, this time by Gianluigi Nicotra and dropped back to sixth place.

Cauchi recovered to finish fourth in class and fifth overall – just 0.164 seconds behind Lino who was fourth overall.

Pace held on to second place with very good laps during the pre-final race, while Cauchi registered the second fastest lap again in the pre-final with a time of 47.618 seconds on lap 12.

There was a lot more in store for the eventful final race. Cauchi tried hard to move from fifth to second, but he had to lift his foot off the throttle to avoid another collision with Pace who was doing his utmost to prevent Alfio Leonardi from overtaking him.

But then the worst nightmare for Cauchi happened. At the apex of the hairpin, Nicotra failed to brake in time and clipped the rear corner of Cauchi’s kart, sending the Maltese driver spinning and down to the bottom of the field.

Ironically, Cauchi had made some spare parts available to Nicotra as the representative of Rotax in Sicily was out of stock! If the Malta champion had front brakes like all the others this might not have happened, because he too could have braked late.

By the end of the second lap, Cauchi moved up to 11th from a field of 16 drivers because two drivers had failed to start the race, two had problems in the first lap, and Antonino Sardo had to retire. Eventually Pace retired on the second lap after colliding with another driver.

Cauchi recovered positions with every passing lap, pushing his kart to seventh by lap seven. He overtook two drivers at the same time on the ninth lap to place himself back in fifth position.

It was evident that, had Cauchi not been pushed off the track, he may have challenged hard for a podium position. In these circumstances, he had to be content with a fourth in class as it was impossible to overcome an eight-second gap with Carmelo Finocchiaro.

But a comeback from the rear to fifth overall was no mean feat, registering seven laps under 48 seconds each in the process.