The first race for Marti, the Ala Spring Cup brought him his first success against competition with faster category of karts. The weekend started with a rain storm which forced the organizers to abandon a couple of practice sessions. But once the track was opened, Marti was first out and recorded fastest time for the session. Then during the lunch break the sun came out and the track started to dry up. It was drying up pretty fast, but it was very wet on the straight leading to the fastest and most dangerous corner on the track.The team decided to take a risk and put slicks for Marti. He was the only one with slicks and the first 5 laps were quite hard, he was slow, but then tire temperature built up and Marti went P1 with 1.9 sec advantage!
It’s important to be noted that up until now in Marti’s career, he has always been on pole when the track was wet or with mixed conditions!
For the first semifinal things didn’t go to plan because Marti and the team didn’t know the Bridgestone tires very well. The start was good and he lead the first few laps, but then the tire pressures were obviously way too high and he was losing lots of grip. At the end he was overtaken by Leon Brunner and local driver Emma Segattini. Emma won the race, but Leon was given a penalty and thus Marti was classified second.
For the final Marti took the lead and didn’t surrender it for the first 5 laps, but then Leon Brunner who was with an OKJ kart which is 18kg lighter and equally powerful took the lead. Marti was able to take back the lead in the corners, but Leon was way too fast on the straight. Then Marti took a wise strategic decision to wait and launch an attack on the very last lap when Leon would have no chance to take back the lead. This required a lot of patience and allowed Emma to close back on them.
Then on the last lap, just 3 corners from the finish Marti attacked Leon and took the lead, but while they were contesting the lead Emma closed further more and all three drivers finished in tandem for a very exciting finish! Luckily, it was Marti who came up on top just 0.058 sec in front of Leon and 0.078 in front of Emma!
This exciting finished marked a perfect start for the season for us, but it also showed that Marti had not only grown up physically over the winter, but also in terms of strategic thinking and race management.
Special thanks to Alfred Frommenwiler, team boss and TB Kart’s importer in Switzerland for the equipment and the crucial support he gives us!
