25th August 2012

Friday diary from U18 World Champs Round 2 - Jacob Parsons & Joseph Mawson

Practice day at each of the rounds in the CIK-FIA Under 18 World Karting Championship consists of four 15-minute sessions for each drive split throughout the day.

Australian Jacob Parsons showed some strong pace all throughout the day to post times inside the top six, while his countryman Joseph Mawson had an up and down day, the highlight being a second fastest time in his third session.

James Abela is also competing at the event in the Academy Trophy, he posted times in the top half of the field all throughout the day.

What they had to say…..
Jacob Parsons – U18 World Championship #50
“This round our pace is much better, we ran more or less top 6ish in all of the sessions, we dropped off a bit at the end of the sessions. However, we didn’t get to run new tyres today as we saved them for the final session which turned out to be a wet one so this means we will now have a new set of practice tyres for practice in round 3 as we are allocated one new set per round for practice,” said Parsons.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow, feeling a lot more confident and not intimidated by the event size and other competitors after now having raced this all before. All of us had a great time yesterday running some hire karts on the track next to the U18’s one, myself, Mawson, Abela and our Italian team mate laughing and having some intense races with some other guys in preparation for the racing ahead over the weekend.”

Joseph Mawson – U18 World Championship #49
Practice Session 1 – 8th
“I had to run the engine in for the first 5 laps, then I began going flat out. I was on a flying lap towards the end of the session and coming out of the last corner a kart was slowing down and I had no where to go and crashes into the back of him. Luckily enough I had no damage, but that flying lap would have out me in the top 5 as I was 2 tenths up in the first two sectors. I finished the session 0.524 secs off the quickest time from Hubert who is French and is very fast at this track.”

Practice 2 – 12th
“We changed the front end for the session which improved the kart slightly. I still didnt feel confident with the track and was struggling a lot with the front end and corner exit speed. I finished the session 0.673 secs of the quickest time from Hubert again who had 3 tenths on the second quickest person.”

Practice 3 – 2nd
“We put new tyres on and changed the gearing for this session. The kart was awesome and I had really good front end grip as well as corner exit speed which is what I was struggling with in the previous session. I caught and passed a fair bit of people which gave me confidence! I finished the session 2nd quickest which I was really happy with! I was 0.164 tenths off the quickest time by Hubert who had also put new tyres on. I was half a tenth faster in the first two sectors but he is 2 tenths quicker than me in the last sector. We will think tonite about what to change for the morning Practice session tomorrow.”

Practice 4 – 31st
“The final practice session for the day was wet. I had no grip front and rear compared to every other driver and was struggling with wheelspin and front end steer into corners. Some drivers would pull 8 karts on me out of corners even A good drivers like the 2012 KF2 European Champion Barnicoat struggled with grip in the rain. I was 7.558 seconds slower than the quickest time! A lot of head scratching for a lot of people but the rain should hold off for the rest of the weekend.”