Italian Gabriel Vuono wins MinGP World Championship at Valencia

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Published on Thursday, November 3, 2022 16:56 EDT

Ohvale racers from 15 countries qualify for second annual shoot out

The second annual Motul-backed FIM MiniGP World Series took place today at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain, on a track right beside the larger facility that will host the final MotoGP premier series event this weekend.

With the entire field aboard identical Italian-built Ohvale160 models, shod with Pirelli rubber, the focus was solidly on rider development and the FIM’s ladder system, hosted by Grand Prix organizers Dorna.  A mid-Covid start one year ago got the Championship going, with riders earning their entry spot based on success in the domestic National Championships, piloting the same spec Ohvale racers.

Italian Gabriel Vuono was the fastest Qualifier on Wednesday and backed that up with three strong performances during Thursday’s busy five event schedule.  Three races were used to establish the final results, with the third and final decider (Super Final) worth double the points of the opening two races.

As expected, the young aces saved their hardest racing for the Super Final, where Vuono ran near the front and eventually out-dueled Austrian entered but German-based Fynn Kratochwill for the win, the margin of victory at the line 0.07 of a second.  Quabil Irfan of Malaysia out-dueled three other racers to nab third.

When the points for the three counters were tabulated, Vuono scored a popular Championship, followed by Kratochwill and opening race winner Seiyur Ikegami of Japan.

Canadian MiniSBK Organizer Toni Sharpless was on hand in Valencia, enjoying the action with the vice Champ of the new-in-2022 Canadian Series Ben Hardwick.