Full Weekend Race Report: Kart Cup West Final Round 5 - Borås, Sweden

One Championship Secured - Another Slipped Away

​Going into the final round of the Kart Cup West, it was as tight as it could possibly be between the top 3 drivers, and absolutely anything could happen, with only two points separating the trio of Hugo Eklund, Deven Grabko, and Alexander Frykberg going into the last race of the season at the Gäddered Motorsport Complex Karting Circuit outside of Borås, Sweden in the village of Svaneholm.

There was extra pressure on our man Deven, who had held on to the second spot in the Kart Cup West National Series Championship for the last three rounds after a piston ring failure at his home track in Uddevalla cost him an otherwise sure podium finish, and his off in qualifying at the 3rd round in Lidköping where he was fastest on track all day long had cost him another podium. Had he secured those two results earlier in the season, he would already have already been sitting on 80 points going into the final round and had the series already wrapped up going into the final round.

As it was, he was on 70 points, one point behind the leader, Hugo Eklund, and one point ahead of 3rd placed Alexander Frykberg. He was also at a disadvantage to all the top 4 in the series on the tiebreaker criteria, which were best results, as Frykberg had a 2nd place in Skövde to Deven’s two 3rd place finishes in Gothenburg and Skövde, and Eklund had the victory in round 1 in Uddevalla.

So it meant he would have to beat them both on track outright in order to win, as any tie in points would go to the other driver.

SATURDAY FREE PRACTICE

The weather would be wet most of the free practice day, and in these conditions, Deven was untouchable. With laps time between 1 and 1.5 seconds faster than the closest competitor, things were looking good at lunch time on Saturday.

The afternoon running was still looking good, as the track moved over to dry conditions and slicks went on. Deven still held an approximate 3 tenth gap to the next fastest drivers in the early afternoon. The gap was closing, however, and as the track gripped up more and more, parity was reached and by the last run, the team was now looking at a 2-3 tenth deficit in pace to the fastest drivers instead, chasing time instead of setting the pace.

It was a worrying development going into the race day where it was forecast for sun and dry, more grippy conditions than the free practice day. The kart was stepping out in the back on our driver, preventing him from being able to fully push at key moments on the track, and race engineers were having trouble mitigating the issue.

This was how the situation ended going into race day.

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