RMCIT 2020 – Portimão

From December 5th to December 14th Bas and I were in Portugal to participate in the Rotax Max Challenge International Trophy 2020 at Kartodrome do Algarve in Portimão.

Kartodromo do Algarve – Portimão

It was a memorable week I may say in which we have, shall we say, a lot of experience. Especially in dealing with setbacks.

On Tuesday during the first practice the engine broke down.

Wednesday was a fairly stable day without too much craziness on the track and trying to make up for the backlog caused by the missed tracktime on Tuesday.

On Thursday some official training sessions were held followed by qualifying.

For qualifying and the races, the tires had to be left on the rim in the Parc Fermé. Before the race we were able to fit the desired tires and then disassemble them after the race to leave them behind in Parc Fermé again.
Bas was in good shape during qualifying. Until he made a mistake and the mud flew around. This was the end of a good qualifying, resulting in a starting place in the rear regions.

Qualifying error caught on camera

On Friday heat 1 and 2 were held.
In heat 1 Bas had to start in 30th place and was able to fight his way to 20th place.
Heat 2 also had to be started from the 30th. Because of a spin from another driver at the start, Bas had to make an evasive action and went backwards into the gates. Fortunately not too much damage and Bas only had some problems with his neck. Ultimately after a nice catch-up race still finished 28th place.

Attacking the curb

Saturday
Just like in heat 1 and heat 2, heat 3 also had to start from 30th place. After a good start and winning some places, Bas made a small mistake which unfortunately meant the end of the race.

Cleaning task after heat 3

Eventually we dit not qualify for the A-Finale.

Sunday
The B-Final could be started from place 22. The first time racing on slicks this week. On the first lap he immediately climbed to 16th place. Unfortunately this time a flat right rear ended the race after just 3 laps.

As mentioned earlier, a memorable week in which we mainly learned to deal with
setbacks. As if this wasn’t enough, we were also stopped by the police on our way to the airport on Monday. What a week!

Despite all the setbacks, we still had a very nice week in which we had some good laughs with the rest of the crew and went home with a big bag of experience added to our luggage.

Thanks Slangen Karting and everybody else who was there with us.

Some more pictures from the weekend: