There was lots of hope Marti to be allowed to take part in Carbonia Cup, but sadly it wasn’t possible due to his age. So this season he’ll spend in testing different types of cars, possibly without racing anything. The first single-seater he tested after the refusal was Formula Predator. This is a small italian car with 600 cc Honda bike engine, 103 hp, weight around 350 kg and normal road tires. The championship with these cars is quite popular in Italy and Marti’s test was one of the tracks featuring in it – Varano de Meligari.
As usual, Marti was straight on the attack exploring the limits of the car right from the go. He posted a 1:14 time in the first season, some 2 sec off the pole time with this car. After some telemetry analysis Marti went out on track, but some little technical problems occurred and he couldn’t use the full potential of the car. Step by step all the technical issues were solved and during the last session of the day Marti managed to do 21 laps, over a full race distance in one go and then he posted a time just 0.001 sec off the pole-position! After some telemetry analysis it was discovered that Marti was gaining some 0.3 sec by positioning the car advantageously for the last chicane leading to the final straight.
The car’s constructor, Corrado Cusi was quite amazed how a kid who still doesn’t have the leg power to press hard & super fast the brake pedal and is losing some time, manages to compensate for the lost time by clever usage of his car control & talent. According to him this was an incredible time for a driver who hasn’t raced single-seaters and doesn’t know the circuit.
Sadly, the minimum age to compete in Formula Predator is 15, so this is yet another championship in which Marti would be able to fight for wins but can’t participate because of his young age.
