21/08-2022
Race Report: DIF Danish National Championship 2022
There was much more anticipation than normal before the 2022 edition of the Danish National Karing Championship as this would mark the only return of high-level racing this season due to the cancelation of the DSK Series.
This year the race would take place at the Roskilde Racing Center, located on the Zealand Island and 25 drivers would take part in the KZ2 class.
Friday – Practice:
Before the first practice session, the ambient temperature rose above 30c as a heatwave that was due to stay for the entire weekend hit the circuit. GP-NHR Racing Team and our driver Nicklas Rasmussen made a promising start with some good progress on the setup of the kart. Much of the focus was also on understanding the tires and how to maximize them in the hot conditions.
Saturday – Qualifying:
In qualifying the team was left confused as the pace of the kart unexpectedly went away. The handling of the kart worked quite well, however the tires did not provide the speed that was expected, and the laptime was slower than it had been in the earlier worm-up session. Nicklas qualified in 22nd pace out of the 25 drivers in that took part in the session.
Saturday – Heat Race 1:
Before the heat race, the team made some setup changes to try and gain back some of the lost laptime. On lap one, Nicklas only just avoided being part of a huge accident as two drivers collided in front of him, resulting in a roll-over for one of the drivers.
A few laps in, Nicklas had moved his way up to 17th place and would stay there for the rest of the heat. The setup changes that the team made to the kart did also gain back some, but not all of the lost pace from earlier.
The driver who rolled over was taken to the hospital and while he did not compete more during the event due to ithenjuries he sustained, he was okay.
Saturday - Heat Race 2:
Once again Nicklas would start from P22 due to the result in qualifying. The team had tried to further improve the setup of the kart with the lessons learned from the previous heat. The setup changes had a minor positive effect and Nicklas made steady progress through the heat and would finish the heat in a solid 17th place.
Sunday - Heat Race 3:
The final heat race would take place during the earlier hours of the day. in an attempt to learn some things and prepare for the all important championship deciding finale later in the day, the team would take a risk with the engine tuning. However, these changes had a poor effect and as a result Nicklas would only finish in 20th place in the heat. However, the good news was that some valuable lessons had been learned that could be applied for the pre-finale and finale.
Sunday - Pre-finale
The pre-finale would set the starting grid for the championship deciding finale, so this was an important heat. Some teams and drivers would use their remaining fresh tires to try and improve their chanses in the finale however GP-NHR Racing Team and Nicklas decided to save the new tires for the finale. Nicklas would lose a place in the early part of the heat but take that place back a few laps later. What followed was an exciting battle for track position with several overtakes being made. Nicklas would finish the race in 18th place and therefore start the finale from that position.
Sunday - finale.
After all the hard work during the weekend It would all come down to this, the championship deciding finale. The team would fit the kart with the fresh tires for maximum grip. Nicklas would make a fantastic start to the race and move up 5 positions to 13th place. However only five laps into the race the kart would suffer an electrical issue that caused a complete loss of power from the engine. Nicklas had to pull the kart off the track and retire from the race. The official result in the Danish National Championship would be 20th place, 14 laps down with a DNF.
Nicklas Rasmussen - KZ2 Race Driver:
Overall, i would say that we had a solid event. We have had some major issues with getting the kart to work at this particular track and just the fact that we managed to largely solve some of these issues must be considered a small succes in and of itself. Unfortunately, we were never able to fully understand the lack of performance in qualifying and the heat races that followed, however we make some good workarounds for this, but it was suboptimal for sure. Things looked quite promising for the finale with us moving well into the mid-field during the early part of the race, but we had an electrical issue that forced us to retire.
I would like to thank the team for their continued effort and dedication, especially this year like this that has been a very rough for Danish karting. I would also want to thank GP-Racing Denmark for the fantastic support that they gave us through the weekend.
Copyright Photo: Dennis B., Karting i Billeder / www.photo-d.com"
