The races just keep coming, hard and fast! Marking the halfway point in our hectic 4 race September, the Team 13 Karting Circuit would again be our hosts. It was time for the 2022 Gothenburg Grand Prix, an annual event that attracts drivers from across Sweden, and the Formula Mini class was no exception.

It was a strong field full of drivers the team hasn't raced against previously, so it was going to be a good measure of our driver’s meddle, especially as we were looking to put up a better showing this time around than at the same track two weeks ago in the 4th round of the Kart Cup West. During that weekend, we had shown a notable lack of pace and the gap to the front was too large. We were looking to remedy that situation.

Practice Friday
Friday was a lost day in many respects. The team was only able to arrive at the track and get the paddock area setup complete in time for two runs in the afternoon before the track closed down for registration and technical inspection for the racing tomorrow.

On top of that, it had started to rain after lunch and by the time Deven got himself out on track it was very wet conditions. A few off track adventures into newly laid dirt in the runoff areas, meant to be planted grass but transformed into mud pits because of the rain, meant that more time was spent rinsing off and cleaning up the racing machine than driving it out on track.

​Not much time for analysis here, but Deven was able to study driver coach commentary from his 9th place finish in Malmö the previous week, so not all was lost.

​Race Day
The event had a slightly different format than what we are used to in the SKCC and KCV series the team runs in, with only a single practice warm up session before a 7min qualifying session. Then it would be two 8 lap sprint qualifying heats to determine the grid for a longer 10 lap Pre-Final race. The results from the Pre-Final would determine the starting grid for the 16 lap Feature Final.

​It has been no secret that the team have been underperforming since the restart of the season after the summer break. Confusion and frustration had ensued as a result, trying to find the root cause of the problems that were manifesting themselves out on track.

Having poured over the racing machine, practice and race engines, and driving mechanics and technique into the smallest details, it was very difficult to find any one thing that could be causing such a loss in competitive pace. No avenue was left unexplored in the quest to rediscover the speed and performance we had shown throughout the Spring. A new driving coach was brought in to help the racing pilot fine tune his mental and physical preparation and technique. Borrowed race mechanics were brought in from fellow Intrepid Driver Program Sweden teams to supplement the team’s own resources (Special thanks to Intrepid Driver Program Sweden Team Alehall Racing!!).

It was a deep, dark hole the whole team had found themselves in, and on top of this, the final testing session at the Glimminge Ring in Uddevalla, our home and base of operations, showed that both the team’s engines had developed an unexplainable weakness. Neither wanted to rev into the high powerband all of the sudden, and it was as if the bottom had fallen out of both of them. No grunt on the low end and no push on the high end.

So it was with some trepidation that the team prepared for the 6th round of the South Sweden Kart Championship Cup 4 hours down the road in Malmö, Sweden, arriving later in the evening on Thursday in preparation for free practice on Friday. Our racing driver, Deven, however, was in a determined mood. He had a quiet confidence and focus about him that hadn’t been shown since his stellar performance in Skövde in the 3rd round of the Kart Cup West in June.

Trying to Rediscover the Racing "Feelings"

Only a few days after the frustration and disappointment of the last race in Jönköping, it was already time to reload, reset and get into the right headspace for the next one! This is the penultimate round of the Kart Cup West series, and with a 2nd place in the championship going into the second to last round, it was important to bounce back from the previous week’s drop in form.

Hosted by the Gothenburg Karting & Racing Club, Team 13, at their Gothenburg Karting Circuit in Gothenburg, Sweden, on the island of Torslanda, it is a sweeping track with very unique technical challenges. A super fast, slightly off-camber long and sweeping turn 1 leading into the turn two hairpin, and then a tricky and important double apex turns 3 and 4 that lead into a swooping straight and on to a mildly banked turn 6 that is tight at first and then unwinds out to the 2nd hairpin turn 7. Then turns 8 and 9 are another technical double apex combination that lead out onto the long front straight where you are full gas for more than 40% of the lap distance.

A challenging track where the team has not had a lot of opportunity to train previously, so the pre-race testing sessions on Thursday would be vital for learning the fastest way around the 1.1km circuit. Progress was made, but the times the team were putting up were not near enough to the top to give confidence going into race day.

Free Practice | 2x 5min | P8 & P12
Only two 5 minute practice sessions were scheduled for the morning before qualifying, instead of the usual 10 minute sessions, so it was hard to get a gauge on where the times were going to be. The most time was being lost in turns 3 and 4, as well as 8 and 9. The team were unsure how to proceed after these sessions as the pace wasn’t being found and hanging outside of the top 10 was not going to be sufficient to maintain the fight in the championship standings.

The 5th round of the Southern Swedish Kart Championship Cup was the first stop on the calendar after the Summer Break, hosted by Jönköpings Karting Club at the Axamo Ring in Jönköping, Sweden.

The team were looking forward to making as good a start to the second half of the season as they had to the first, when Deven recorded his first ever top 10 finish all the way back in April at the first round of the series in Helsingborg.

However, it just wasn’t meant to be. The weather was hot and sticky, with air temps getting to well over 40°C in the pit area on both the Friday practice as well as race day on Sunday. This meant nearly baking conditions on the tarmac, and grip levels that won’t be seen again this year.

The extreme conditions definitely did not play into the team’s hand, as Deven had a very difficult time getting a handle on the glue-like surface and being able to adjust his driving style to suit.

The Friday practice saw the team frustratingly way off the pace until very late in the day, when a combination of finding a useable chassis and engine setup with Deven able to discover something on track, getting within a few tenths of the midfield pace.

It gave the team some hope that Sunday would be better.

Free Practice | 2 x 10min | P31, P32
The hope was short lived though, as whatever had been found on Friday afternoon had been just as quickly lost again on Sunday morning. We were slow everywhere, in the tight first sector and in the free flowing and motor heavy 2nd and third sectors as well.

The team made the 3 hour trip south from our headquarters in Trollhättan, Sweden down to The Klippan Karting Ring, in Klippan, Sweden, which would host the 4th Round of the Southern Swedish Karting Championship Cup. After a fine top 10 finish in the first round, the double race weekend in Växjö did not go as planned through no fault of our racing driver, Deven, who put on some powerful performances in the heat races, but was hampered by motor problems and team decisions that let him down on the track. Here in Klippan it was hoped that the team could get it right and allow Deven to achieve to his potential. However, it just wasn’t meant to be this weekend.

Free Practice | 2x 10min | P15 & P25
The weather on Friday Practice had been warm and sunny, with high grip levels, and Deven had shown top 10 pace in the latter stages of the day. Race Day was completely the opposite. Cool and wet, with medium to heavy levels of rain. The two early morning sessions had the team scratching their heads. It was later discovered, later on after the 2 Sprint races, that the team had prepared the front axle in the opposite direction, lowering it instead of raising it, giving the kart less grip in the back and more oversteer. So again, the team was already compromising the performance of the kart nad making life harder for our racing driver. Did nothing for his confidence or his trust in the racing machine.

Qualifying | 10min | P35
This got even worse for him when it came time for qualifying. The team had problems with the qualifying set of wet tires as they were not sitting correctly on the wheel rims. Finally solving the problem just minutes from the session start, refueling the tank was completely missed. Unfortunately there was not enough fuel in the tank for the high levels of g-forces experienced in the turn 3 and 5 hairpins that exited out onto the two back straights that featured on this circuit. The result was engine cut out on the exits of these two critical places on the track. Deven had no chance. He was helpless in the kart as he waited for the engine to come back to him when the fuel settled back into the bottom of the tank. This was a 2.5s second per lap deficit that was unsurmountable. No matter how good he drove, he couldn’t better his first lap’s time because the fuel was getting lower and lower, and the engine cut out was getting worse and worse. He was driving better and better but getting worse and worse times. It ended up 2nd from last in the 36 strong field. The team had let him down crucially twice now on the day.
How could he possibly come back from this?