The success of the last couple of years is noticeable. At the opening of the ADAC Kart Masters at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, as many as ten drivers started for the Mach1 Motorsport team and were able to impress. With Lucas Speck, the manufacturer from Brackenheim currently ranks second in the overall standings.
A difficult task awaited the team’s juniors. Axel Ausländer started in the fully occupied class IAME X30 juniors and experienced slight starting problems in the beginning. Achieving position 28 during qualifying, the youngster fell short of his own expectations. Things went much better during the first race though. Axel fought his way through the field and just barely missed out on the points, coming in 16th. He then had really bad luck during the finals: after a skirmish in midfield, he only came in 27th.
The second youngster to enter a race in the KF3 class and face the strong competition was Johannes Gumbrecht. 50 junior drivers had travelled to the Magdeburger Boerde and were able to impress due to high levels of performance. Only reaching 41st position, everything did not yet go according to plan for Gumbrecht during qualifying. He knew how to skillfully increase his performance during the Heats and races though. Due to exciting overtaking maneuvers he was able to leave more experienced opponents behind and finished the races on 21st and 23rd positions respectively.
In the IAME X30 class, team leader Martin Hetschel let four drivers enter the races. Fastest man of the weekend was Alexander Heil. After having been successful at the WAKC during the past few years, he dared to rise and was able to keep up with the frontrunners during both races. In the end he achieved positions 10 and 4, ranking him 7th in the overall standings. His teammates Jan Jesse, Lukas Korsch and Baldur Bahn showed great performances as well. Just like Heil, the trio was able to handle the new Mach1 FIA9 chassis very well and also gained championship points.
Manuel Valier, Lucas Speck and Lisa-Christin Brunner started in the KF2 class with a bang. During qualifying, Valier and Speck were only a few hundredth of a second away from pole position. Coming in 2nd and 3rd, they secured perfect starting positions for the Heats. These did not go by without problems though. Both of them lost important places and were only able to start the first final race from the 6th and 13th positions respectively. While Speck managed to skillfully fight his way to the front again and secured the overall 2nd position due to an 8th and a 3rd place, Valier had it worse. Collisions that were not his fault threw the fastMunichresident back considerably. Lisa-Christin Brunner provided a moment of shock when she had a sensational accident during the finals. The racing-physician thankfully gave her the all clear after a short check-up though and in the evening, Lisa was already excited for the next racing weekend.
Toni Greif started as a soloist at the shifter karts and felt very comfortable during his first race in the team. During free training he still had some difficulties with the adjustment of Chassis and engine, but managed to gain more and more trust during the weekend and continuously increased his performance. During the finals he temporarily seemed to finish in the top five and came in 9th and 10th in the end.
It was a load off team leader Martin Hetschel’s mind on Sunday evening: “This weekend has been a huge challenge for us. In addition to supporting so many drivers, it has also been the first hardness test of our new Chassis. We were able to master all of the challenges and I am very content. The performance of the FIA9 model was impressive and our drivers very competitive.”
The team’s next race will already take place next weekend. At the Erftlandring in Kerpen, the German Kart Championship will start the 2012 season and Mach1 Motorsport will be attending with a strong team once again.
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