Last Updated on 24 March, 2024 by gokartprix
For the last but one race we came to a very nice indoor track called Caroli Kart Center Nyköping. For the second time in our history we used a format with both driving directions in the same event. Q1 drivers spent with an ordinary clockwise lap direction. Group 1 was warming up tires so no wonder that no one was in top 3 after the whole Q1 session! But the best of that group were Anatoly, Mattias and Fredrik. In group 2 the fastest was Andreas who drove out of 23 seconds on one lap. Behind him were Raivis and Berke.
In the opposite direction group 1 had advantage because of the cleaner tires. Mattias, Anatoly and Fredrik were the fastest there. However, Andreas still could drive faster than 23 seconds there as well and got himself a TQ. 2nd fastest in group 2 was Berke. This result gave him P4 on the grid, overtaking Fredrik by only 0,003 of a second in combined qualification time. However, both of them went straight to Final A together with Anatoly, Mattias and, ofcourse, Andreas. The rest of the participants qualified for Final B.
But there was still 1 ticket to Final A left to race for. In row 1 were two Latvians – Raivis and Igor. Igor’s reaction was for a fraction of a second faster and he managed to dive first into turn 1. But on the first lap he was sliding here and there which was eventually slowing him down. Raivis was right on his tail and even tried a couple of options for overtaking. But the indoor track’s configuration this time was in Igor’s favor. After the next lap Igor stopped sliding and started pulling away. Mio, who started 4th, but also had a better reaction time than Kristoffer took 3rd position right from the start. He, however, couldn’t pull away from Kristoffer, and let him take P3 back. During the next laps Mio was pushing Kristoffer and showing that he was faster. At one point he decided to overtake, but that led to both losing speed and Martin gained both of them. Kristoffer kept his position, but Mio let Martin through. Now Martin was pushing Kristoffer and made his move. But the move wasn’t clean and he overtook Kristoofer by holding him into the barrier. Mio took that chance as well. A couple of laps later same turn, same move, different outcome – Mio stuck and lost all positions. After he got back on track he gained Rafal but there wasn’t enough time left to overtake him. Igor had a solid lead, won the heat and moved to the main session of the day. Martin received one position penalty and dropped to P4.
Mattias started Final A at his best, overtaking Andreas already by turn 1. Anatoly was right behind him and went side-by-side with Andreas. They kept on going like this to the chicane where Andreas being inside and having more speed pushed and turned Mattias around. The whole inside line (Andreas, Fredrik and Berke) kept on going while the ones outside (Mattias, Anatoly and Igor) stuck. That was very frustrating for the race leader and his follower ending up last. In the front Fredrik decided not to wait long. He overtook Berke for the 2nd and went hunting down the leader. Meanwhile Mattias and Igor were closing the distance to Berke. After a few laps Igor made a move. Didn’t work out. But Mattias was already super close. So Igor had to defend himself. Eventually Mattias caught the moment, passed Igor and went for Berke. In the front Fredrik was constantly closing the gap to Andreas and at some point he made a bold, but successful move on him. Andreas didn’t like that but couldn’t do anything against Fredrik after that. Behind them Mattias caught Berke and searched for the diving hole. Berke, however, put all his racing experience into play and showed very nice defense skills. Their 2-way fight became a 3-way fight when Igor caught them. But no matter how they tried there was no more position changing in this group. The last laps were the toughest for Fredrik. Andreas was all over him and was provoking him to make a mistake. Fredrik was very nervous and really made a couple of mistakes, but that wasn’t enough to lose the lead. And finally came the checkered flag – so long awaited for Fredrik. He took the 3rd victory in this season and his career.
There was no podium ceremony yet because stewards were investigating the lap 1 incident. Only after a long pause did they find Andreas guilty for spinning Mattias and decided to penalize him with 4 positions. That brought Mattias up to P3 and Berke to P2 which now happens to be the highest result in his career! Penalty didn’t hit Andreas much. With his TQ and best lap he collected enough points to be crowned as 4-time GoKart PRIX Champion!!! Congrats!!!
A huge thanks to the amazing Caroli Kart Center Nyköping staff and to our participants! Race documentation to be found here.
Now we are heading to the final race of the season in Kista!