After the summer break, school is back, and so is racing! The track was drenched during Thursday practice, and stayed the same till the end of the day, letting me learn the track in wet conditions, though hot weather was forecast for the weekend.
Learning the track
At the end of Friday, I was 2 tenths of pole, in the top 10, ready for Saturday's time trial.
9th in Free Practice 11
We went out for the 8 minutes time trial, I managed to push to the limit, ending in...
Really pushing to the edge of the apex
3rd place in my group!
Overall Time Trial Results
I took the start of heat 1 with caution, stayed in the interior, and kept my line. I managed to gain 1 place throughout lap 1, and glued myself to 7th position. During lap 2, 3 karts got into a battle, as they ran wide, I took advantage of the situation to promote me to 5th. They made the places back though, so I kept my 9th place.
Heat 1 Results
Coming into heat 2 with good points, I managed to squeeze past people who had left a gap in the inside of turn 1, and built a gap between me and 7th. The two of them took back their places mid-race, and I stayed 9th, defending from the pack till the last 2 laps where I got overtaken, and it caused a chain reaction dropping me to 14th. It still wasn't too bad, as long as I kept around the top 15 for the 3 heats it should have given me a good position for the prefinal.
Heat 2 Results
Going into heat 3, I knew I just had to keep my position, and I would start within the top 15 for the prefinal. Going into turn 1, I gained a place to the inside, though 2 karts were on my left, and we tangled up and that resulted in a DNF.
Overall Heat Results
Starting 17th meant I had to do some passing, but I had 17 laps, which was sufficient for me. This time I decided to be conservative at the start, losing 2 places. I gained them back by lap 2, and started by dash to the top 10 till the end of the race, where I ended up in 9th.
Prefinal Results
I was briefed by my coach during lunch, and gave me a confidence boost for the 22 lapped final.
On the start, the exterior lane bogged down, and as someone tried to go into the interior lane, he hit my front left so hard that sent me into a spin and right into the tyre barriers. I didn't want to see my name last, so I pushed during the last 22 laps with a damaged front spoiler scraping the track during left corners, causing major understeer, in result of much slower lap times. I slowly reeled in to them, lap by lap to close the 8 seconds gap, and used the last 5 laps to get to 21st place.
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