Last Updated on 24 March, 2024 by gokartprix
Weather forecast showed 100% of rain on the race day. And it happened to be true which didn’t let us use the whole track at Mattias Andersson Grand Prix Go-karthallen. But in order not to make the QQR format boring we were able to use the reverse direction in Q2! And that was awesome!
Mattias set the pace in Q1 by showing the best lap time, followed by Johan and Andreas. But in Q2 his time was only the 5th best, tying Igor’s time. In fact Mattias became the only driver who couldn’t improve his time in a reverse direction. It was for the first time we have been using this configuration and it received quite positive feedback from participants. Except, of course, Mattias. 🙂 Since we used 2 different configurations in qualification we just summed up the best lap times in order to determine who will be starting from pole position. And it was Johan who outperformed Andreas by 0,01 of a second and got his first TQ in the championship!
Since it is a short indoor track Johan was counting on a good result starting first, but Andreas right away started pressing hard on him. And in the end of lap 2 Andreas made a successful move. But he wasn’t the only one – right behind him was Jani and Mattias. Both of them used a “train effect” and all passed Johan. Igor also wanted to be on that train, but Johan decided not to let anyone else through and cut that option for Igor. After a few laps of battle Igor finally managed to take that 4th place… for a short moment. Johan was back in front of Igor. This battle continued and let top 3 drivers get far away and everyone behind them were already very close and just waited for a right moment to attack.
GoKart PRIX rookie William stuck in the last hairpin, but everybody managed to pass him without incident. Finally Igor found the way to overtake Johan, but it was already too late to get to top 3. He was about to overlap another rookie Emil, but it wasn’t that easy. GoKart PRIX rules don’t say that the ones who are about to be lapped should let those through. So, Emil was defending himself which led to Igor’s incorrect choice of trajectory and suddenly not only Johan, but also one more rookie Kristoffer passed Igor who still was going behind Emil. There was still some time left and Igor finally passed Emil and then Kristoffer.
In the front there wasn’t much of a fight between Andreas and Jani. They were going Hamilton-Bottas style all the way :). Mattias, however, was losing pace and got caught by Johan and then also Igor. But it was already the final lap, so no positions were changed in this 3-way battle. Andreas won Östergötland GoKart PRIX for the 3rd time and became the only driver who has 3 victories on more than 1 track. Jani finished 2nd earning his best-to-date finish position, and Mattias got the 3rd step on the podium. But with these results he lost the season leadership to Andreas.
And it was only the first of 2 races that day…
As usual, big thanks to Mattias Andersson for support and to all participants! Race documentation stored here!