Lasse Kurvinen’s perfect start to the defence of his FIM Flat Track World Championship title continued at the Hungarian Final last weekend (18th September) as he claimed a second consecutive victory. The Finn, winner of the season opener four weeks earlier in Germany, was again able to jet from the start and lead from the second turn to the end of the ten-lap distance in Final Two in Debrecen.
Kurvinen, though, didn’t have things all his own way, with just a single point separating the top five in qualifying and Daniele Moschini, as he did in Diedenbergen last month, making it through to the Final as top seed. But unlike in Germany where he was restricted to eighth, this time the Italian was able to convert his favourable starting position into a first podium of the 2021 campaign, the second of his Flat Track World Championship career following a third place in the 2020 season opener in Pardubice.
The only other rider to beat Kurvinen during the heats was Zaeta-mounted Kevin Corradetti, and the Italian youngster proved the Finn’s closest challenger in the Final, stalking him throughout and finishing just one and a half seconds back over the line.
With Francesco Cecchini still recovering from injury and Lasse Kurvinen impressive when it mattered in the Final in Germany, the Finn was always the favourite for another victory in Hungary. But with a maximum score on his account, and his series rivals taking points from one another in these two opening Rounds, Kurvinen is now also well on his way to a second world title. At the season’s half-way mark, Kevin Corradetti, runner-up in Debrecen, and Markus Jell, who scored a fourth place to add to a podium from his home Round, are now tied on 40 points apiece and are ten down on series leader Kurvinen.
Germany’s Jell enjoyed a race-long scrap with the Czech Republic’s Jiri Kraus, who earned comfortably his best result to date with fifth. His fellow countryman Ondrej Svedik also progressed to the Final and he made an outstanding start before gradually dropping back to finish tenth.
It was a difficult day, meanwhile, for Spain’s Gerard Bailo and Adrian Garin, both of whom failed to make an automatic transfer to the Final and were left to scrap it out for two qualification positions in the Last Chance Qualifier. Bailo got the verdict for second over his fellow countryman Garin by eight tenths of a second, Daniele Tonelli the other rider to make it through.
Bailo held sixth position for much of the Final before ultimately fading, with Sebastien Jeanpierre and Ervin Krajcovik both picking him off around the outside on the penultimate lap.
The second Final of the 2021 campaign provided FIM Flat Track’s first visit to Hungary since 2012 and the first such event in the 50-year history of Debrecen’s 381 metre Speedway Stadium. The venue was re-named last year after Pál Perényi, a former Hungarian Speedway Champion and coach to the Hungarian national team that finished third at the World Pairs Championship in 1990.
The series now heads to more familiar territory in Pardubice, with Final Three from the Czech Republic on the 2nd October, a week before the end-of-season decider in Boves, Italy.
FIM Communications
