Photos:
For all Daytona Championship photos and more, please click here.
SuperChamps - Daytona Sandown Park
On a perfectly dry day at Daytona Sandown Park, we returned to the D40 format for the fifth round of Superchamps in the winter season.
SODI
In one shot qualifying, Jamie Warner took a dramatic pole position ahead of Ethan Critchley and Zoe Liang. The field was close, just six tenths separating the top eleven. In the Heavyweights, Olly Cooper-Welton took pole position, managing to get the better of his Heavyweight counterpart Reece Harris.
Heading into the forty-minute race, we were treated to an absolute cracker. Jamie Warner may have taken a lights to flag victory, but it was by no means straight forward for him. Ellis McKenzie was just five tenths of a second behind, which shows incredibly consistency between them in a race that went to forty-five laps. Jasim Abdulhameed also finished within a second of the two leaders, rounding off a very competitive Lightweight podium. As for the Heavyweights, Olly Cooper-Welton converted his pole position in emphatic style, with a major battle going on behind him between Reece Harris and Sam Roy. Eventually, Harris was able to hold on to the position and secured the second spot on the podium.
DMAX Heavyweights
In a hotly contested DMAX qualifying, William Willard took pole ahead of Karlis Elmanis by just seven hundredths of a second. However, Elmanis would not resume his spot on the front row of the grid as he spun on the formation lap, forcing him to start at the back.
Into the race, the top three ran close together throughout. It was quite unfortunate for Tristan Buirski, who put in a wonderful performance to finish third on the road, even leading at times in the race. However, he received a three-place bump and pass penalty and eventually slumped down to sixth position. At the front of the field, Keiran Hyde-Moody was able to just about squeeze ahead of Elmanis to take the overall victory, with Mike Bennett getting promoted into third on the last step of the podium.
DMAX Lightweights
George Lawlor put in a strong lap to take pole position in the DMAX Lightweights, with just two thousandths of a second between Charlie Foster and Antonio Sholin for second and third, setting us up for a very interesting forty minutes.
The race ended up spanning fifty-three laps, with Luka Nik climbing through the field to take victory ahead of a valiantly defending George Lawlor. Lawlor had the lead until lap thirty-one, where Nik made a brave move to take the lead, and eventually the victory. They were joined on the podium by Antonio Sholin, who was promoted into such a place because of a one-place penalty applied to Charlie Foster. With that being said, Sholin still earned the podium on merit, having a really good battle with Foster throughout the later stages.
SuperChamps - Daytona Tamworth
With the clocks having gone back the weekend before, Round 5 of the autumn season of SuperChamps at Daytona Tamworth would be the first round in many months that started and finished in total darkness. With fireworks erupting in the background, the two grids were primed and ready for some racing action.
N35-ST
The ten-minute qualifying session would set the grid for the shorter of the two races: a fifteen-minute Sprint Shootout. Lightweight championship contender Sam Makinson took pole position from rival Lucas Gathercole by just a quarter of a second, with the next three drivers, including Heavyweight Chris Cleaver, less than a tenth of a second further back.
In the sprint race, it was polesitter Makinson who dominated the race from start-to-finish, despite having to negotiate a red flag and race restart. He took the win by just over five seconds from Gathercole, setting the fastest lap in the process, with winner of the previous two rounds Jude Lillyman recovering to P3. In the Heavyweights, championship leader Benjamin Tomkinson-Gray overhauled Cleaver and Lewis Middleton, a solid P3 and P9 overall.
The twenty-five-minute Feature Race grid was determined by the best laps set by the drivers in the sprint. There was disaster for Gathercole, who jumped the start from a front row grid slot, earning him a three-position penalty. Despite this, he led for almost the entire race, finishing P1 on track but dropping out of the Lightweight podium. Behind Gathercole, polesitter Makinson battled with Lillyman for the net win, with Lillyman making the move in the dying stages to take a third straight win of the season, thrusting him forward as a championship favourite. Championship leader Oliver Noakes rounded out the Lightweight podium. In the Heavyweights, it was an impressive drive from Tomkinson-Gray, who managed to stick with the upper midfield of Lightweights, finishing five seconds clear of Kristine Kolodziejski and Cleaver, despite carrying an injury he’d picked up earlier in the week.
DMAX-GT
Once again, there was a familiar face at the front of the Lightweight DMAXs, with championship leader Alex Jackson taking pole position, but only by a tenth of a second from Luke Dodman and Benjamin Tomkinson-Gray (racing in Lightweights). Heavyweight driver Tom Duffy did well to feature P5 overall, several spaces ahead of current championship leader Matt Ellis.
In the sprint race, it was a familiar story for Jackson who, once he got through the opening lap, started to build a gap at the front. However, fellow Lightweight Joseph Simcock managed to get into P2 early on. Despite finishing three seconds behind Jackson, he was the only person able to stay anywhere near him. Once more, he took the fastest lap of the race by one thousandth of a second, awarding him pole for the feature. Could we see a new Lightweight round winner this season? Luke Dodman completed the top three ahead of Tomkinson-Gray and Ellis. Duffy may have been able to keep P2 in Heavies, if not for a three-place cone penalty gained at the race start, dropping him behind Kolodziejski.
The Feature Race contained the best battles for the lead in both classes we’ve seen all season. Joseph Simcock led from pole, bringing Jackson with him, engaging in a private scrap for the round win. Simcock held the lead for the opening ten minutes, but in the end, Jackson’s trademark consistency proved yet again just a bit too much, snatching the lead with a late braking move into turn four, winning the race by five seconds. He was aided by some fantastic driving in the last two laps, when drizzle started to fall on the previously dry track. In Heavyweights, Matt Ellis and Tom Duffy scrapped for the lead for the entire race, joined in a three-way duel by lap record holder Jack Middleton. After being disqualified from the sprint for being underweight, he had to start from the back but quickly climbed all the way to P5, earning a hard-fought P3 in Lightweights. Meanwhile, Ellis showed the class that is helping him dominate this Heavyweight championship, holding off Duffy for the entire race, the two nearly twenty seconds ahead of the next Heavyweight, Kolodziejski.
A fantastic round of racing across all four championships, we can’t wait to see what happens next in this enthralling season!
InKart - Daytona Tamworth
It was once again the Heats format at Daytona Tamworth for Round 5 of the autumn season of InKart. A ten-minute practice session allows for an opportunity so the drivers can shake off some rust, followed by two ten-minute heat races, the grids of which were random and then random reversed. The fifteen-minute final was decided by combining each driver’s results from the heats. With all drivers racing in one combined large grid, it promised to be a super entertaining round!
Cadets
George Marriott went into the event having scored the maximum points available so far this season. His sterling drive from last on the random grid to finishing P1 on-track in Heat one was certainly true-to-form. However, on his way to the front, he committed an ‘advantage by contact takeout’ move on Jessica Kirby, earning him a three-place penalty, dropping him off the podium. Polesitter Leonardo Palagi inherited the race win with Henry James and Kirby not far behind.
In Heat two, Marriott’s pole start put him as the favourite going in, but it was Kirby who got the jump off the line. She won the race by a comfortable four seconds from James, in what must be her strongest drive of the season so far. Marriott rounded out the top three.
Two impressive drives from Kirby saw her start on pole for the final, taking it on best lap from James, with Marriott in P3. Those three broke away from the rest early-on, and a fantastic battle for the win ensued. The critical moment came at the final corner, with Marriott committing a bump-and-pass move on Kirby, awarding him another penalty, this time just one position. In the chaos, Henry James climbed from P3 to the lead, and never looked back. After some solid overall podium finishes earlier this season, James crossed the line to take his first win of the season by three seconds from Marriott, who dropped behind Kirby after penalties were applied.
Juniors
In Heat one, it was Alfie Kells who managed to take advantage of a front-row grid slot to narrowly hold off Harry Kennedy by just over a tenth of a second. Polesitter Reuben Potter just held onto P3 ahead of Noah Johnson.
It was a hard-fought battle for the win in Heat two, with the top three covered by less than two tenths of a second! It was championship leader Joseph Smith who took the spoils this time, ahead of Kennedy and Kells. With Kennedy and kells earning joint-most points from the heats, pole was decided by best lap. Kennedy’s best lap was just twenty-one thousandths faster than Kennedy, with Smith lining up P3.
With such a competitive Junior field, it promised a thrilling final, and it did not disappoint! Pretty much the entire Junior grid was scrapping for the lead for most of the race, with positions constantly switching hands alongside ferocious battling. In the end, Kells was able to build a narrow margin at the front due to the battling behind him, and took the win by just under two seconds from Kennedy, Potter, Johnson and Rueben Carter-Smith, who crossed the chequered flag nose-to-tail in a train of karts.
One of the best rounds of Inkart in recent memory, and with the halfway stage of the season behind us, it’s only going to get more competitive from here!
Photos:
For all Daytona Championship photos and more, please click here.