Last Updated on 24 March, 2024 by gokartprix
Weather forecast predicted a 5% chance of rain in Norrtälje that Saturday. And those 5% happened to occur during our race! In group 1 of Qualification William was the only one whose lap was faster than 40 seconds. In the second group there were already 3 participants who could beat that benchmark. And the fastest of them all was Igor S! This TQ is his first since Borlänge 2017! Conditions back there were also wet, by the way. Second in Qualification was Andreas followed by William and Fredrik.
Every track that we race at has its unique feature. This time we had rallycross-alike starts when the first 3 drivers begin their race from the same line. Andreas had a better start while Fredrik and Jani struggled on the outside. Suddenly 2nd place took Björn, but only for a very short while – he didn’t calculate his speed and spun in the first hairpin. Right behind him was Slawomir who took his place. But not for long either, because he was overtaken by Jani and Fredrik who managed to find their pace already by the end of the 1st lap. During the heat Jani got closer and closer to Andreas and finally took the lead. He kept this position till the finish.
Having the best starting position, Igor S couldn’t convert it into a comfortable lead. Mattias and William had other plans regarding the first 2 sports. After this switch the rest of the heat was quite stable. Until the moment when on lap 10 out of 14 Igor S suddenly slowed down. His engine went into some failure mode and could give only a half of power. Igor S tried to find the best line and don’t let others pass, but that didn’t work and he had to struggle for the final 4 laps. However he didn’t come last! For Igor K it was very unstable heat. He had a nice battle with Emil but spun several times and finished even behind Igor S who certainly had bad luck, and by making TQ had now only one last chance to get into Final A.
Slawomir started from the pole in Final B, but from nowhere came Igor K who gained 5 positions during the first 4 corners and took the lead! Igor S had a mission to win this heat and he was already 2nd by the end of the first lap. What happened next? For the whole race (15 laps) two Igors were driving close to each other. Igor K had an absolutely different pace compared to his Semi-Final. He didn’t make any mistake and didn’t give Igor S any chance for overtaking. Even the lapped karts couldn’t make the difference. In the end it was Igor K who saw the checkered flag first winning the ticket to Final A and leaving Igor S only with 9th place overall in what promised to be his very good race. Slawomir couldn’t keep up with Igors but neither let anyone close to himself and finished 3rd – the last one within the same lap with leaders. Championship rookie Adam gained 2 positions and finished 5th starting last.
In Final A Mattias was on pole-position and could convert it to a lead… until the first hairpin. Andreas started 3rd but had an engine glitch right after start that dropped him into P6 for a short while. After a couple of seconds his engine came back to normal and Andreas was the only one who drove on the outside line of the track when everybody tried to get inside. Having no one in front of himself Andreas could overtake 3 karts at once on the outside in the first hairpin and by the next left turn he was already inside taking the lead from William! A brilliant move! Mattias didn’t agree on that and he took back his starting position. But he was a bit nervous and made a tiny mistake. But that was enough for Andreas to take the lead again. Another tiny error and here comes Jani.
Behind them William and Fredrik had some disagreements about who of them should be on P4. In the front Andreas was driving like on rails enlarging the distance from Jani. William was getting closer to Mattias and finally got on his tail. But something went wrong and William spun letting Fredrik pass him. Mio, Berke and Igor K also were “dancing Waltz” and trying to fight the wet track. Andreas took his 3rd victory in a row with Jani being a runner-up for the 3rd time in a row as well. Mattias ended the race on P3. Fredrik finished 4th matching his best result while William crossed the line 5th taking his highest finish position so far. Igor S didn’t participate in Final A but the amount of points he scored was enough to beat Anatoly in most points gained all-time!
In season standings Andreas made clear to everyone that he’s chasing his 3rd title! Mattias and Igor S keep covering the top 3. Fredrik went up to P6. Since we started the 2nd half of the season we added an extra column with points predictions taking into consideration our rule with deduction of points depending on the amount of races participated. At the moment it is Mattias, Igor S, Andreas and Berke who lost some of their points in the predicted virtual table. With Jani’s high streak he has very good chances to end this season in top 3 if he continues to participate in races.
It was yet another wet but a very fun race. We want to thank Gokart För Alla staff for support and all participants for this awesome race! Race documentation as usual is stored somewhere on g-drive.