Wednesday and Thursday were official test days and whilst there still seemed to be a degree of lack of power, Alex felt comfortable in the new kart.   He made use of the eight sessions each day to provide valuable feedback to the team.

 

Friday was official Timed Qualifying and Alex was seeded in the second group of qualifying which may have had a more advantageous performance than the first group.

 

The drivers had one lap to make it all count and as Alex developed his strategy for his best lap towards the end of the session, it didn't go to plan as a group in front of him had an incident resulting in Alex not achieving the optimum out of this lap. Alex qualified 15th in group, and 27th overall out of the 50 drivers.

 

With qualifying out of the way, drivers got down to the business end with each driver competing in 3 out of 6 heats.   Alex would start from grid 13 in the first heat and grid 14 in the other two.

 

On the Saturday morning, rain had fallen overnight and indeed for morning warm up it was wet.   When it was time for Alex to start heat 1, the tyre choice was wet, though the rain had stopped and the track did not have lying water. Alex made a great getaway and rapidly worked his way through the field.   Adapting well to the tricky conditions,

Alex finished in 2nd place and took the fastest lap, 0.47 seconds faster than any other driver.

 

Alex followed up the great first heat with another sound performance in second, resulting in a 6th place finish.

 

LYING 4TH OVERALL AFTER THE OPENING HEATS WAS A GREAT START FOR ALEX! SADLY THIS WAS THE LAST POSITIVE OUTCOME FROM THE WEEKEND

Heat 3 saw Alex again make swift progress through the field up to the top 10. However a driver on lap 2 spun in front of Alex, despite swerving to avoid contact, but the driver unfortunately and unintentionally caught the rear of Alex’s kart resulting in a bent axle which meant Alex could not continue.

 

After the disappointing final heat, Alex was gridded P17 for the Pre-Final, despite his two storming heats.

 

The usual mayhem descended upon the grid at the first corner and Alex was driven over the back of his kart by a driver behind causing damage to the radiator and his steering was bent resulting in another frustrating DNF through no fault of his own.

 

This left Alex starting the Grand Final from the back of the grid. Despite the shift in circumstances, Alex remained upbeat and with encouragement from CRG mechanic Riccardo, Alex lined up alongside Marta Garcia on the final row of the grid.

 

Disaster struck on the second formation lap. As the entire grid started to slow to form the two starting lines, a misplaced driver was trying to get back into his original position and collided with Alex, forcing him off the track. Very quickly Alex, got back on track and was able to catch the slowing grid before the start line. As the lights went green, it became obvious that something was wrong.

 

Alex retired to the pits with a bent axle and a damaged radiator following the collision and with an injured hand when the offending kart catapulted over Alex.

Early indications thought Alex had broken his wrist, but we are pleased to say that his hand was just badly bruised, and he has since been in a kart and straight back on it!

 

A VERY DISAPPOINTING END TO 10 DAYS IN SPAIN, DESPITE THE EARLY HEROICS ON SATURDAY.

"IT'S A WEEKEND TO MOVE FORWARD FROM"

- ALEX QUINN

 

 

 

RACE RESULTS

QUALIFYING -27TH

HEAT 1 - 2ND

HEAT 2 - 6TH

HEAT 3 - DNF

PRE-FINAL - DNF

FINAL - DNF