Krausse Motorsport Juniors @ 24h Karting Spa 2023

On the weekend of September 2-3 we participated in the 24h Karting Spa as Krausse Motorsport Juniors. This was our first 24h race and by far the most challenging karting race we ever did. Competing against 64 highly competitive teams in a race where strategy and being able to handle various issues are equally important as having a good race pace all throughout the 24 hours.  The team comprised of 3 KM pilots:  Lucas Bracke, Kiran Kennis and Ramses Helsen and 2 VD Racing pilots: Kyan Van Delft and Noah Bruggeman.  Myself and Roy Van Delft acted as Team Manager and Adjunct Team Manager in charge of strategy and making sure we avoid any costly mistakes.

Training went pretty well but right after kart selection we knew our initial kart was missing power. We took it to maintenance where they checked it out but during qualifying it was clear it was still pretty much the same so we could only make P47 out of 64 teams.

Kiran took the start and was initially able to move up to P40. After 90 minutes Kyan took over and was able to keep position around P45. Right after the first kart change we knew the second kart was a lot better. After Noah’s stint,  Lucas got on track at P47 (we lost some time during the pitstop) and right away set a blistering pace that pretty much matched the Top 10. After numerous overtakes and a fastest lap of 57’765 (fastest lap during the race was 57’384 set by AMG Racing), Lucas finished his 90 minutes stint at P27.  Next up was Ramses with our third kart which was not superfast but not slow either. After 90 minutes Kiran took over and with a good solid pace made sure we stayed around P27-P30.  Just before midnight Lucas took over with again a different kart. Again a solid but not superfast kart but with again numerous overtakes and a great pace Lucas finished his stint at P21.  As the race management did not allows us to have Kyan or Noah drive at night (since < 16 years old), we had to rely on Ramses, Kiran and Lucas to take all the night stints.  Some good race pace during the night stints meant we were able to keep around P20-P25 all through the night.  More importantly, because of some mistakes and less good karts at our competitors, we were on track for a podium in the Rookie class.

But then bad luck struck us in the early morning when we got our 6^th kart which turned out to be an absolute disaster. Kyan did the first stint and was unable to get some consistent pace as the kart had understeer in one corner and oversteer in the next. Also power was lacking so we decided to come in for maintenance. They discovered a stone in one of the 2 engines so decided to replace that engine which made us loose about 6 minutes. Back on track the kart was still very bad steering wise so no real improvement. Kyan handed the kart to Noah which experienced the same issues. So after a while we decided to come in again for maintenance to look at the steering. To our surprise some bolts of the steering had come completely loose which obviously explained the issue. Another 4 minutes lost.  End result: when Kiran took over we were back at P40...

The last 2 karts were average and at this point it was hard to gain any meaningful places. After Lucas final stint we still managed a P35 out of 64 and 7^th out of 17 in the Rookie class.

I did some simulations and if we didn’t had all the issues with the 6^th kart and simply were able to keep a pace of 59’5 average for those 2 stints (in line with what Kyan and Noah could do in a typical kart), then we would have finished somewhere P20-P25 and 5^th in class.

Still a great first experience for the 24h Spa and we certainly learned a lot to comeback much stronger and much better prepared next year.

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