An Agile Approach to Karting
Round 5 of the ESR league took us to the short Belgian track of Zolder. The track has lots of long straights and hard braking points and, with plenty of laps under my belt I was feeling quite good about the race.
I’d done quite a lot of practice, initially concentrating on getting my tire pressures consistent and then making a few other smaller changes. I’d done some calculations on fuel and even tested them out in a full race length successfully.
The Silverstone race hadn’t gone particularly well for me but with two MRC events at Spa and a lot of practice put in I was confident I could get a better result in this time.
After the MRC races I already had good knowledge of the track and I set about improving my pace and consistency. Before the race I had a best lap of 2:23.343 and was confident that I could go quicker.
After the 80 minute endurance race that was round 2, the following week saw round 3 still at Spa but this time for 2 30 minute sprints in the wet. With another 50 minute race at Spa coming up with the ESR crew I’d done a lot of mileage at the track over the last 2 weeks. While I wasn’t especially confident of a strong result I didn’t think I’d make a fool of myself either. After a mid week wobble when I nearly didn’t take part I set aside a couple of evenings for some wet practice and found that I wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
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After 1 good and 1 bad round in the championship I was keen to have a better result at Silverstone. I wasn’t especially looking forward to the wet race but that was what had been organised so that’s what we were doing. The conditions in the server were changeable throughout the week but I was able to do some running on the wet track on Thursday evening where the times I set were comparable to the other drivers in the room.
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Traditionally, I don’t get on with Spa. I always think of it as an F1 circuit and as that’s not my main interest I don’t drive it much. It’s also a long lap and takes a lot of effort to learn it. However, with an 80 minute race, a 50 minute race and a pair of 30 minute (wet) sprints coming up I thought I’d invest some time in it this time.
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With the January rounds of the SuperPro championship put on hold, 6 of us got together to do some racing on Assetto Corsa Competitzione on PS4. Although most of us race regularly on Gran Turismo Sport, Assetto Corsa encourages drivers to setup their car correctly and is less forgiving to drivers. As a result it’s more difficult to drive but more rewarding. We thought we’d use it as an opportunity to learn the game together. Jason and Reece would drive the Ferrari, Doug and Chris the AMG and Dan and Ben chose the McLaren.
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Round 2 of the championship saw us visiting the Hungaroring, a track I’d initially dismissed as dull but is now becoming one of my favourites.
I did quite a lot of work for this race and was actually feeling pretty confident going into it. I’d done a practice qualifying and race session the day before with a few other drivers and had a comparable pace. I’d also done a lot of laps and, with the exception of Turn 4 where I often exceeded track limits, could lap consistently and cleanly.
This was my first race with the Mature Racing Club and I was looking forward to a long season mixing 30 minute sprints and 90 minute endurance races at a mix of tracks and conditions. Once again I’d be driving the Dorset liveried AMG. I don’t have the time to learn a second car!
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Initially planned as the final round of Season 2, this race was now the first of eight rounds that would make up Season 3. Like the previous season, these would be 50 minute races with a mandatory pit stop for fuel and tires. Before each race there’d be a 60 minute practice and qualifying session. I decided to keep my AMG from Seasons 1 and 2 rather than try and learn a new car.
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fter delaying the Catalunya round by a week, we’d run out of time to run the 5th round at Suzuka so this would be the championship final round. 14 drivers lined up for qualifying and would start a race that I had high hopes for.
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