Racereport Klippan Cup

The first race for the season also usually presents some tricky weather conditions, and this time was no exception. A tricky start with a dissapointing finnish to the day, but there were many positive takeaways anyway. We were competitive once we got the settings right and we had a great time together with friends and colleagues!

Ok, so first session for the season. It is cold weather and the grip level is rather low even if it is higher than we've had during the winter. We are yet to fit the race tyres and we don't expect too much from this session. 21 drivers in this heat and Tuva ends up in the middle. The kart feels good and we are happy with the start of the day.

Second session and the temperature has risen slightly. We don't do any changes to the kart and once again Tuva is reasonably happy with how it feels, considering the low grip level from the track and from our old tyres. It would of course have been better to have new tyres for those two sessions to be able to fine tune the settings a bit more, but this time we couldn't. Right after the session we fit the new tyres and make a small adjustment to the settings. We are now ready for the time trials.

Just a few minutes before the session the rain starts to fall, first lightly and then more and more. It is getting hectic to prepare the kart for the new conditions and we simply don't have time to do anything else than mount the rain tires. Tuva fights the conditions but in the end we are simply lacking grip, partly due to too low tire pressure. Instead of gaining a few places we loost a few. Not what we hoped for.

Starting in group C mean that we are starting a little later than the first groups. The rain has ended and we are checking to see if we can see the first spots of dry tarmac. We are definitely not sure when we decide to go for the dry tires, but it turns out to be a good choice. Maybe we could have benefitted from a little higher tyre pressure, but Tuva seems to have great speed from where she is starting. The start is a little chaotic and she looses a few places, but she is constantly gaining but finds it hard to overtake. She is slightly late in one of the overtakes and there is contact with another driver. Luckily both can continue without loosing any positions but Tuva picks up +5 seconds. She finishes P18 but is demoted to P22 after front fairing and OK (unfair driving). On the positive side we did seem to have some speed there and with some more from the tires we have high hopes for the next heat.

The start in heat 2 is quite tricky when the master drives with quite variated speed and starts to accelerate very early. This leads to a lot of gaps further down the line and Tuva suffers from this. She can find an empty spot to take the inner line but ends up on the outer into turn three and loses a lot of places. But the speed is there, the tyres are giving great grip and Tuva is gaining a few places each lap. Starting from p20 she ends up in P10 and later gets p8 due to other drivers penalties. The best lap is also quite competitive and we are starting to find some peace of mind about the settings. Maybe we are still too low on the tire pressure since the best laptimes are in the end of the sprint?

The sun is shining and we recognize the true weather of Klippan Cup. We have been there when it has been sun, rain, hail, snow and storm in the same heat! This time we are enjoying sunshine and raising temperatures. This time we are starting a bit up the field and Tuva is doing a great start. Higher up means faster competitors and she is not gaining the same as in the last heat, but she is progressing anyway. The best times are still towards the end of the session so we might still have some corrections to do. The best laptime is really competitive now and with some luck it could be a great final.

Well, the luck weren't shining on us in the final. A decent start but a slight loss of grip into turn 3 and she was pushed wide and lost ten places. Slightly annoyed and pushing hard to gain places she is eventually in contact with another driver. The contact is pretty hard, the kart rises up and the steering wheel is hitting her hand when it lands again. She is off the track and the race is over for this time. The hand hurts a bit but in the end of the day it hurts more to get a DNF. On the positive side though she shows that she knows how to overtake and the speed is decent even though we are missing a bit in slippery conditions.