Last Updated on 24 March, 2024 by gokartprix
It was a nice sunny day in Linköping although it was raining all the time before and after. The dry conditions let us use the whole track at Mattias Andersson’s facility. Drivers went out for a Qualification session. Kristoffer became the fastest of them all and took TQ. Berke was almost as fast as him and secured the 2nd starting position for the Semi-Final. Igor closed out the top 3, followed by Mattias, Tommie and Tomas. Two Championship rookies Jerry and Andreas were 7th and 8th respectively.
Already on the 1st lap of the Semi-Final Igor overcooked it and lost 2 positions in 2 corners. Shortly after that Mattias, who became 3rd, was pushing on Berke. The Turk had to defend himself and use not ideal lines. This let Kristoffer build a nice gap in the front. Then Igor gained on Tommie and took 1 position back. Not only Igor overtook Tommi, but also Tomas passed the Swede. The Lithuanian wanted more and started attacking Igor. Some bumps and pushes here and there, but that didn’t help much. In fact that helped Tommie get back his starting place. Mattias was still struggling with Berke and couldn’t do much with his defense. Kristoffer was happy to finish 1st without any trouble.
In the beginning of the Final heat Berke was surprised by Kristoffer’s early breaking in turn 6 and went wide, finally letting Mattias through. A couple of wide entries into the corners for a better exit and time didn’t help Berke get to Mattias, but helped Igor to overtake Berke instead. After this overtake Igor closed the door on Berke, and high hopes for the Turk collapsed since he lost 2 more positions. Kristoffer didn’t have any calm life in the lead anymore since Mattias was all over him and was just waiting for the right moment to attack. Igor being 3rd wanted to use their battle to gain on them and maybe even participate there. And he did! But the wrong gokart positioning in one of the left-hand corners on the indoor section opened a door for Tommie to pass. And he used it successfully.
Meanwhile Kristoffer wasn’t leading anymore since Mattias found the spot and overtook him on the start-finish straight. Tomas also wanted a piece of action and overtook Igor, but right away lost the position back to him. Berke used this opportunity to gain on Tomas and in a couple of laps he went inside on the fast speed right-hand corner leaving Tomas to meet the wall. Tomas wasn’t happy at all with this move, but racing direction didn’t find any rules breach in this particular episode. No more action happened during this heat and Mattias won his 3rd race in a row, leaving Kristoffer and Tommie behind.
As always we thank all the participants who were able to join this event and a special thanks to Mattias Andersson! You can find race documentation here.
It was only the 1st event of the day. Review of the weekend’s main race will be published soon.