An Agile Approach to Karting
I’ve always enjoyed racing at Laguna Seca. It’s a short lap which has some tough corners – there’s not a lot of run off and the sausage kerbs can be brutal. On top of those hazards there’s also the fearsome Corkscrew sequence of corners. To add to the mix we were hoping to have some new drivers join us but as it happened only 1 turned up.
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In Season 1 I had my best result at Silvertone with a podium finish in the second race. My chances of being able to repeat this were reduced by the weather (which was wet) and my ability to practice (which was limited by a family holiday). I did get some practice in but suffered not just from a lack of pace but also any consistency at all. Going into the races I wasn’t expecting a good result at all.
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Traditionally, Brands Hatch is a track I do badly at but this time I was determined to change that and have a good race. In preparation I did a lot of work on my consistency and a lot of single player 30 minute races against the AI. Over time I got my best time down to 1:25.9 with race levels of fuel which I was pretty happy with – my best lap in the AMG in season 1 had been 2 seconds slower than that so I was definitely quicker. Sadly, so was everyone else!
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Rounds 7, 8 and 9 of Season 2 would all be sprint races fought out across UK tracks. First up were 2 30 minute sprints around a boiling hot Donington Park. The ambient temperature was in the high thirties and the track temperature just below 50. This would mean tricky driving conditions, particularly in the second half of each race as the tires started to degrade. To try and combat this I worked hard on my consistency and had my brake ducts wide open, trying to get as much air cooling as possible.
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To shake things up a bit and to make the middle of the season, round 6 was a double points scoring hour long endurance race at Spa… and just to make it more difficult it would be held in the dark. Although it’s not one of my favourite tracks, I went well there in season 1 (if you forget about my formation lap crash) and was looking forward to this one.
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The fifth round of the championship was held at Zolder – two sprint races in variable and wet conditions. Taking the lessons from Kyalami I did quite a bit of prep for this event and although I was still struggling a bit with consistency I was able to identify the problematical parts of the track and why (mainly standing water) and find ways around them. I knew both races would be about staying on and was determined to hold my concentration and do just that,
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Round 4 of the championship took us to Misano, the tight and technical track perhaps more suited to bikes than big GT3 cars. Once again we were running a pair of 30 minute sprints and unlike the previous round I’d actually done some practice. I was hoping for some 5th and 6th place finishes this week.
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After a 2 week break to watch the football, the season restarted at Kyalami for 2 sprints – one in the dark and one in the day. I was really looking forward to these races as Kyalami is one of my favourite tracks and I was disappointed it didn’t get chose in Season 1. I knew the track quite well from the previous ESR and MRC races (admittedly in the AMG) and didn’t do a lot of practice. I was soon lapping at a similar pace to I had in the AMG and was feeling pretty good about my chances in the race.
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The second round of Season 2 was held at Imola with another 2 half hour sprints. Traditionally I’ve never done well at Imola and always had poor results – would this be any better? To compound things, I hadn’t done a great deal of practice and this was the first track that I’d been to in the Lamborghini were I wasn’t a couple of seconds quicker than I was in the AMG.
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For the second season of Race Club I decided to switch cars to the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO. The test sessions we’d had before the start of season showed that I was roughly 2 seconds a lap quicker as well as being a lot more consistent and less error prone in it. Like Season 1, Season 2 would be a 12 round championship with a mix of weather, a 1 hour endurance half way through and a 2 hour season finale. The other rounds would be 2 30 minute sprints. All of the tracks had been voted on my the drivers and we started the season at Suzuka.
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