During the 2nd round of the Swiss Rotax Max Challenge at Wohlen, there were far more lessons to learn than opportunities to spray champaign.
Everything started badly long before Marti and the team had arrived at the track because one of his schoolmates got Covid-19 and the whole class was quarantined until the end of the weekend. Marti was lucky that the races were on Monday May 24th, but all the other drivers had arrived earlier and tested on the track. He had to go to one practice session and then straight to qualifying.
In the practice session he was P3, 0.4 sec. from the leader, then in qualifying lowered the gap to 0.3 sec. and once again P3 for the start.
As usual in the first race start, Marti was excellent and climbed to P2, but then he got punted and spun off by the guy in P3. This meant he only finished 7th in this first race!
For the second race, Marti had to start from this 7th position, he didn’t make a super start but managed to overtake all the drivers up to P2 and also had the fastest lap of the race! Sadly, after the race in the technical inspection, he was penalized for his front spoiler hanging down, the penalty relegated him to P6.
For the final, the weather was playing games. It quickly rained right before the start and Marti’s father who usually makes the right call in such situations gambled with slicks. The track wasn’t drying up as fast as expected, but more importantly, after a few laps, the race clerk stopped Marti because the race had been announced as a Wet Race and that according to the championship rules meant that all drivers had to start with wet tires.
That’s how the second round of the Rotax Max Challenge finished for Marti. For the second time, he was really unlucky, but this didn’t deter him from his relentless determination and will to fight to the end.
