We was back to Brentwood today for Round 11 of the Cadet Race League and one which I was hoping to finally secure my First Championship Title, so did I do it? Well...... Almost! I was so close, just 2 points shy of it, so you guessed it, it's going down to the Final Round. So what actually happened this week?
I always knew that going into this round was going to be a tough one, following my win last week I was facing a 5 place grid penalty. My task of the day was to keep Ben Hamilton behind me as much as possible as he is my closest contender in the Championship.
With my quali lap, I just don't know what happened to be honest! The kart actually felt really quick, but just didn't hit the right spots on the track so I was dreading where I qualified. In the end I qualified P2 which wasn't a disaster until I realised that Ben was on pole! I 100% needed a really good getaway in Heat 1. Yep the kart I had went nowhere off of the line and I dropped back instantly to P4, not what I needed. Once the kart got up to speed I managed to pull the positions back and had some battles for pole, I took pole but was then issued with an ABC so I had to give the position back & settled for P2, not really what I needed.
Onto Heat 2 and my luck wasn't getting any better, the kart that I got in was running as soon as I hit the brake to stop the kart from moving forward the kart cut out. It was restarted and did exactly the same thing again so the decision was made to put me into a different kart, one that someone had already switched out of, great, so I wasn't holding out much hope.
Onto the grid for a rolling start which was chaos and took 3 attempts to get underway. I held back a bit sensing that there could be trouble at the first few corners and felt that this was a wise decision. I made up positions and in the end went from P12 to P2.
Next up was the A Final and because of my 5 place grid penalty I was starting P8 in the Final. I wasn't really too pleased with that and wanted to be a bit higher up the grid but taking into account the grid penalty it was a decent result. We lined up for a reverse track grid start and was hoping for a good getaway as I was on the outside of the track.
I didn't get the best start however Ben got a bit squeezed towards a barrier and had to back off so I was able to go round him and gain a position so at the end of the first corners I had already gained 2 positions. I just needed a really strong result and knew that Ben Hamilton was already in 3rd so I just pushed with everything that I had. In the end I finished P3. I was really pleased to be back on the podium again, especially following a 5 place grid penalty.
I was also so pleased for my pal Mikey who secured his first Race League win! Well done mate.
So in the end I fell 2 points short of securing the Championship, but live to fight another round. I know that I have a really strong back up round of 25 points and in order for Ben Hamilton to take the top spot next week he needs to have a Heat Win, claim the Fastest Lap of the Day, Win the A Final (with a 3 place grid penalty) and I need to score less than 25 points, it's a really tall order for Ben, but not impossible, so again I need to keep my focus & push to the end.
Collecting My P1 Trophy From Round 10
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