Phoenix FM-sponsored racer Lochlan Bearman was in action at round 4 of the Whilton Mill Kart Club Championship near Daventry, Northamptonshire.
Having raced in Europe Bearman was looking to use his new experience of racing with Europe’s best to good effect. In order to protect his racing budget he was unable to attend the practise day on Saturday where teams and drivers tune their karts for the circuit.
So with a 3 lap practise being his only opportunity to set-up the kart to his liking it was always going to be a challenging day.
Starting from 4th place in Heat 1 he made his usual fast start and was soon in the lead which he held to the end but being 0.5 seconds off the pace he had to utilise all of his defensive skills to keep 3 faster karts behind him.
In Heat 2 he started 11th and again made fantastic start and completed lap 1 in 3rd place! On for the race to be red flagged (Stopped0 for a nasty incident. This meant a full re-grid so he would start form 11th again. Finding the inside line blocked going into turn two – Christmas Corner he drove around the outside of the other karts and looked to have gained a significant amount of positions only to be launched into the air as two other karts collided and crashed into Bearman. Now it was Bearman’s turn to bring out the red flag as he had badly hurt his back. A trip in the ambulance and some pain killers later and he was released to race for the remainder of the day.
Heat 2 was re-run and Bearman was again caugt up in someone’s else accident and had to take to the grass where his karts was temporarily stuck. He regained the track but was now almost a 3rd of a lap down. Getting his head down he caught some of the back markers and managed to finish 8th.
For Heat 3 he started 12th. Again he made a good start and was soon in the 5 car race for the lead. With the kart still not to his liking he got up to 2nd and the crowd enjoyed a tense battle between the 5 drivers with positions changing every lap. Bearman eventually completed the race I n4th place but had managed to set the fastest lap on route.
These results put him in 3rd place for the final. The CooperMotorsport Team had again worked furiously between heats to set the kart up more to the 13 years liking.
As the field exited turn one Bearman was till in 3rd position. For 5 laps there was no change at the front with 5 karts circulating nose to tail. Bearman then slipped past under braking for the 180 into second place. He was soon on the tail of the leader but was having to defend from 3rd place. This remained the status right through to the end with the last 2 laps being a challenge to try to pass and ensure he did not get passed.
After finishing second Phoenix driver Bearman commented “to be honest I am quite happy with the result. I just did not have enough to make a clean move, and did not want to risk crashing. I was also having to defend so making a challenge was always going to be hard. We had a number of issues today and I just could not get the kart working how I wanted it to but the team worked really hard and we got better and better during the day”.
This result has actually worked in Bearman’s favour in the Championship as he did not lose points to those ahead of him.
His next race is at Kimbolton on the 10th of May.
