DOUBLE GP PLATE CHAMPIONS

Race Details: 4th – 7th August ’22 | PFi | Kartmasters 2022

This weekend we ventured back ‘home’ to PFi and the annual Kartmasters event with the TVKC. This is and always has been the best on off event in the country and with the likes of Lando Norris, George Russel and Lewis Hamilton having raced at Kartmasters over the last 26 years, shows why it has always brought out the best in the country and even Europe!

We had three racers this weekend. Jack ‘Tyrone’ Hobson in Junior X30 and for Senior X30 Charlie Lamb and returning GP plate winner our very own Harry ‘Hair Force One’ Platten (the nicknames weren’t given by us, but Henry Beaudette and Anthony Jordan from this weekends live commentary!)

With THREE packed days of racing, it was going to be one hell of a ride…

Friday saw the usual qualification, then two heats, but for Saturday, slightly different… with three random heats. The total points awarded for the five races would decide where our drivers would start for Sundays prefinal!

Jack Hobson – Jack (aka Tyrone) had a decent qualifying and comfortably made it to 10th fastest, could have been a little better, but we all know quali at PFi is ‘interesting’ so 10th is a decent spot and certainly good enough to go on and win from. Heat 1 saw Hobson fighting through the pack and finish 5th… nice work! Heat 2 Saw a first lap incident and Jack was wiped out and left with retiring the kart… welcome to Krashmasters!

Saturday saw Hobson start heat 1 in p29 and finish P13 and the highest climber. Elbows were certainly out in that heat! Heat 2 and a P13 start. The middle of the pack is a tough place to start, byt ‘Tyrone’ had his elbows out and muscled his way into 9th before the chequered flag fell. Final heat and a P5 start, with a sublime start we were third into the bridge. By lap 4 we were leading! A solid race between Jack and 2nd place saw the lead bounce backwards and forward with Jack narrowly missing out on the race win by 0.1 seconds. Unfortunately, a penalty put Jack to the back of the grip. This meant with all point accumulated, Jack would be starting his prefinal in 19th position.

Sundays Prefinal saw Hobson start 19th position and e decent finish would put him in contention for the Grand Prix win… and boy did Tyrone not disappoint. Elbows out and Hobson ripped through his opponents. In the 14 laps he moved from 19th to 5th! Outstanding, simply outstanding! This meant the GP plate was within grasp. The final saw him on the inside of the 3rd row in 5th place. Lights go green and they’re off after 3 laps Hobson was in 3rd, but the train from 1st to 15th was separated by a second. With 15 of the best X30 Juniors in the country battling for the win, we saw some awesome racing. Jack battled as hard as the rest and showed great maturity in his racing. Alas it just wasn’t to be, Jack crossed the line in P9.

Charlie Lamb – Charlie returns for Kartmasters having been out of the kart since last years O plate competition. Was mega to see him back in the BMR colours and we hoped that this year would be more favourable than previous years. Quali went well, having been out of the kart for a while Lamb outqualified his Senior X30 team mate and made P28 of the 41 entrants. Heat 1 saw Charlie start P19 and finish in 17th place with plenty of fighting each lap. Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks as Lamb, now a veteran of Kartmasters showed that his battling skills have improved further for this year! Heat 2 saw another P19 start and another tough battle in the mid pack to finish P20. Alas a technical issue saw Lamb fall to the bottom of the results sheet.

Saturday saw Charlie start P7. Most of the race saw Lamb in the top 10. A valiant attempt at taking back a position saw it fail and Charlie had to settle for fighting in the mid pack and crossed in P17. Heat 2 and a P23 start. First lap shenanigans saw the nose cone drop and then another mid pack fight ending in a P28 with a penalty. The final heat before Sundays finals and a decent finish was needed to escape the repechage! Another mid pack start…P17 and another battle saw him fight his was up to P13. This gave Charlie P35 and the confirmation that he’ll need to smash the repechage!

Sunday and a P5 start in the 11 strong repechage, with the top 6 going through… No only was Charlie not content with a P5 and pushing away to ensure the main finals, his elbow were out and he’d certainly showed that he’d had enough of mid-pack running! Lamb overpowered his competitors and took the lead on lap 3, then romped away, cementing victory and a path to the Grand FINALS. This ensure ALL the BMR drivers made the GP finals for Kartmasters 2022! The Prefinal saw Lamb start 31st and when the lights went green, Charlie continued the onslaught that he showed in the repechage. With the mid-pack running he’d endured all weekend, Charlie fought his was back through, climbing position after position and crossed the line 22ND!!! The final was a chance to show again how Lamb would intend to rip up the rule book and come from the back to the front, alas with every great Kartmasters memory, there’s that one memory that makes you think…what if? With the lights going green and barely a turning made, Charlie had axle issues, which were terminal and his GP final were over, before they’d begun. On further inspection the axle had indeed snapped. Talk about a weekend of highs and lows, but the BMR team are sure that Charlie will come back stronger than ever!

Harry Platten – Hair Force One was back to try and do what only NINE others have done in the last 26 years of Kartmasters – retain his GP plate! In typical Platten style, it was a roller-coaster of a ride… Qualifying was a stinker. With your best time being determined from the average of your nest three laps, it just didn’t work for Harry and qualified in P30! Heat 1 saw a P20 start, but in the fashion we at BMR have become accustomed, H tore through the pack, finishing in P13. Heat 2 and another P20 start, saw Harry rip his fresh wets literally to pieces (a downpour caught everyone out so all the racers were on new wets on a now very dry race track!), and finished in a respectable P9!

Saturday – Heat 1 saw Platten in P29. There aren’t many current drivers that can race PFi as well as Harry and it showed in this heat. Crossing the line in P13 making 16 overtakes on the way! Heat 2 saw a P13 start turn into a P9 finish. The final heat Harry started in P6, with a tough race and some decent overtaking, Harry was in P3 with a few laps to go. As ever in Kartmasters, nothing can be taken for granted… A ridiculous lunge from nowhere saw Platten tumble down the pecking order and officially see a DNF! This meant Harry would be 16th for the prefinal, still better than Friday’s P30, but a long way to go!

Sunday – The current GP holder lines up on the outside of the 8th row in P16…this is where it actually matters and Platten knew this, heck everyone knew it! The 14 lap prefinal saw Hair Force One pick off his challengers one by one and Harry worked tirelessly to ensure he had a fighting chance of retaining his title. After a 16½ minute gruelling battle with the finest drivers in Europe, Platten had finished +10 places in P6. With one eye on ‘his’ trophy their was one last battle… Starting P6, this race saw everything, lunges, tyre rubbing, crashes, big ‘air’, finger waving, as a spectator, there was only one place to watch… the front pack. Over 17 laps of adrenaline fuelled passion, Harry drove his BMR emblazoned kart to the front of the pack on lap 13 and defended like a Ukraine against the Tsar that is Putin. He did NOT give up and on the penultimate lap p2 and P3 had a ‘coming together’ meaning the final lap was almost a victory lap. Harry Platten WINS the 2022 Kartmaster Senior X30 championship for a second time and is only the 10th driver to ever succeed in doing so in the 26 years of the event.

WOW! Immense racing by all involved this weekend, but a gigantic congratulations to our very own DOUBLE GP WINNER – Harry Platten!