Race Report – 2016 MSA Kartmasters British Kart Grand Prix
A dream start to Theo’s career at National A level, being in the top 5 almost the whole weekend and despite issues still finished the event 5th overall…
From the test day on Thursday, Theo showed his usual front-running pace, and he carried this on into the 1st of the 3 days’ racing by qualifying 4th, setting a time only 0.04s off of Pole Position. However, he had an eventful Heat 1, going up and down and eventually finishing 8th. Fortunately, he regained his composure to have a great Heat 2 finishing 3rd. This meant that he finished the first day in joint 3rd position.
On the 2nd day of racing, a mistake when coming out of the pits for qualifying meant that he began the session in stone cold last, meaning he would have to work through the field to try and get a good lap in. Luckily, he managed to get 1 good lap in late on, which qualified him in 6th. However, a disastrous start to Heat 3 saw him drop down to as low as 13th at one point, but he battled on to minimise the damage and finish in 9th. Heat 4 was another tough heat, but Theo finished 7th to ensure that he finished the day in 5th position overall.
On the final race day, Theo showed his intentions by being fastest in the Warm Up session. However, things soon unraveled for him in the Pre Final with another slow start, made even worse when he was punted off with only 3 laps to go. So despite getting straight back on track, he could only finish in 15th, leaving him with a lot of work to do in the main Grand Prix final!
Starting in 15th for the main final, Theo really needed to do something special in order to show what he could do, and he didn’t disappoint. He saved the best til last and drove one of his best races to come through the field and finish a very respectable 5th in his first National A event!
Anyway, the Thank Yous… We’d like to thank Keaton Moss from KKC for managing to get us a few key parts at literally the 11th hour on Wednesday night, and for Mike Spencer and Robert Hanscomb at Global for making sure Theo’s kart was perfectly straight and true to start off the big weekend – most appreciated! Thanks also to Dan Parker, James Bean and Grant Munro at ZipKart for the great kart and constant technical support. Thanks to Chris Walker of KartPix.net for the always stunning photos!
We’d also like to thank all our team mates for making the weekend so enjoyable – we’re lucky to have a great bunch of people in the team, and we really had a great time all weekend! And last but not least, a massive thanks to Lewis and Jordan Hall & Billy Monger for running the team so smoothly and effectively as usual!
Well done to all our team mates too, who all drove really well the whole weekend, in particular Oliver Bearman who almost got the win that he so deserved.
For anyone that wants to see footage of the final, you can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsISkSXq8U0