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31 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 JULY 2018 SPORTS MOTORSPORTS WORLD CUP 17-year-old Nicky Gauci places second at the Pista del Sole in Melilli, Sicily Alfred A. Farrugia 17YEAROLD Nicky Gauci gained another podium finish at the Pista del Sole in Melilli in Sicily on Sunday, when he finished second in the final race of the 125 ROTAX MAX category of the Italian Karting Regional Championship. Nicky started the day's rac- ing well when among seven drivers – four Italian and three Maltese – he succeed- ed to register the third best time of 45.768 seconds in the 6th lap in the qualifying ses- sion. Neville Zammit and Jake Agius – the other two Mal- tese drivers, recorded the 6th and 7th times and places, re- spectively. The Pista del Sole 1190-me- tre karting track has become quite a challenge since its resurfacing due to increased grip. This has resulted in a more exhaustive race that requires greater physical fit- ness on the part of the driv- ers. It also made the setting up of the kart a more difficult task and took the whole of the Saturday before the race! Racing his number 22 kart, Nicky managed to move into 2nd place by the fourth lap of the 15-lap pre-final race chasing Francesco Tomar- chio, while registering a best lap of 45.957 seconds in the 6th lap. Nicky maintained the second position till the finish. Jake Agius placed 4th, while Neville Zammit finished in 6th position after getting 10-second penalty points for a non-conforming nose on his kart! It was a pity that the 15-lap final race had to start again a number of times because Nicky had jumped into the lead in the first two attempts. Eventually, Nicky claimed the 2nd position from the very beginning of the valid start behind Francesco, and succeeded to defend his place until the finish, chased by Davide Vincenzo Scuto. Nicky recorded a best lap of 46.209 seconds in the 5th lap of the final race. In the early part of the final race Jake Agius was in third place, but eventually had to be content with the 7th place as a result of a 10-second penalty due to a non-con- forming nose on his kart! Neville Zammit finished in a good 4th place. The next round of the championship will be held on 15th July at the Circuito Internazionale di Triscina, in Castelvetrano near Trapani in Sicily. Nicky Gauci England turn focus to knockout round and the dreaded penalty shootout ENGLAND head into their last 16 clash with Colombia looking to improve on a poor record in knockout games in major tour- naments and with half an eye on the risk of a penalty shootout. Since the Three Lions won the World Cup 52 years ago, they have managed just a paltry six victories in knockout games in major tournaments. Penalty shootouts have proved to be England's undoing on several occasions – they lost via penalties at the 1990, 1998 and 2006 World Cups, as well as the 1996, 2004 and 2012 European Championships. Not surprisingly, manager Gareth Southgate says his team have been working on penalties. "We've been practising and going through strategies on penalties since March. We've been doing studies and having individual practice and we'll go through that in an little more detail now," he said after Thurs- day's final Group G game ended in a 1-0 defeat to Belgium. "We're aware the margins are going to be really fine in these knockout phases. We have to be prepared physically and mentally to go to extra time, and beyond if that's what it takes," he said. England's last win in a tourna- ment knockout game was 12 years ago when they beat Ec- uador 1-0 in the World Cup in Germany but then lost the next game on a penalty shootout to Portugal. Southgate himself has painful memories of shoot out failure as he missed the decisive spot kick in the Euro 96 semi-final against Germany at Wembley Stadium. He later featured in a pizza commercial that mocked his miss along with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle, who missed penalties in the 1990 World Cup semi-final shootout loss to West Germany. But the England manager later opted against appearing in a documentary about Euro 96, hosted by ex-team mate Alan Shearer, because he did not want to talk about his miss. England's failures have be- come a recurring national joke, with acres of newsprint and even academic studies devoted to why their players are found wanting in such situations. The conclusions have includ- ed the speed at which England take penalties – an average 0.28 seconds response time from when the referee blows his whistle – to being trapped in a decades-long cycle of failure. Statistics suggest that players have an 89 percent chance of scoring if the team's last two shootouts have been successful. The figure drops to 57 per cent if they have failed, as England almost always have.