Kiwi karter Daniel Bray has finished 15th at the first round this year’s CIK-FIA European KZ2 Championship at Genk in Belgium.

The 27-year-old from Auckland, driving for the works GP Karts team, claimed three top six finishes across the four qualifying heats (in the other he was spun out on the second turn and ended up 26th) and started his Pre-Final from P11 position.

However he was again hit from behind in that race and was lucky to be able to work his way back up the field to 17th place and claim the last transfer spot to the Final.

And though he started that race form P34 on the grid he did well to work his way up to 15th place at the flag.

“Yeah, a solid result for the first round,” Bray said on his way to the airport for the trip home. ” I was passing for seventh in the Pre-Final when I got hit so if I had got – say – into the top six in that race things would have been different in the Final. But at least I got there and scored some points.”

The weekend’s KZ2 class races were dominated by Italian driver Andrea Dale (CRG/Maxter/Bridgestone) who was in the same stream as Bray, winning all the heats then his Pre-Final and the Final.

Bray is now on his way back to Auckland to run members of his GP Karts NZ team at the final round of the Top Half kart series (at Auckland) this weekend.

He will then return to Europe in early July for the second (Germany) and third (New Zealand) rounds of the championship.