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| November 05, 2012 |
| Driver News: Christian Cole Takes First Rotax Junior Win at Homestead |
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 | | Christian Cole |
Having just completed his final Rotax Minimax race in August Christian has now moved up to Rotax Junior using the final few months of the year to adjust to the full size chassis and the additional horsepower of the unrestricted Rotax FR125 Junior Max Engine.
With Friday practice being mostly rain and wind from hurricane sandy it didn’t offer much in terms of set up help given that Saturday and Sunday were forecasted to be sunny and dry.
Saturday morning qualifying would be sunny and dry as expected. With the main goal on Saturday of just getting seat time the decision was made to qualify on a used set of tires instead of new tires like everyone else. Although Christian was able to qualify 2nd his race pace was not as good as several other drivers and he ended up finishing 5th.
For Sunday’s qualifying the goal was to measure Christian’s true pace against the other drivers so a new set of Mojo tires were fitted. Christian would post a lap 1.1 seconds faster than his Saturday qualifying. Christian would again qualify 2nd but only 1 tenth off of pole. Christian would start the pre final on the outside of row 1 but would get shuffled back to 3rd after turn one. The top 3 of Sebastian Coulson, Kyle Kirkwood and Christian broke away from the pack over the first few laps and then starting racing each other for position. Christian moved his way to the front over the next few laps and would exchange the lead a couple of times with Sebastian Coulson before finishing the race in 1st place for his first pre final win in Rotax Junior.
The final would be a great race from start to finish. Christian would lead the field into turn 1 with a clean start. With the first two laps gone it was the same 3 drivers battling for position. After some aggressive racing into turn 8 Christian would be shuffled back to 3rd for several laps. As the first two drivers raced hard into turn 9 Christian drove underneath both of them and took the lead just as his tires were coming in. With some tough racing going on behind him, Christian was able to drive away to victory for his first Rotax Junior win.
Christian added “The kart really handled great all weekend. Even on Saturday with old tires the chassis drove well, we were just missing a bit of speed because of the old tires. On Sunday with new tires the kart felt amazing. It was really fun to be able to race so closely with great drivers like Sebastian Coulson, Kyle Kirkwood and Sebastian Sierra. These guys are all so fast that if you have one bad lap they will be there to take advantage. In the final when I took the lead back I had to put in qualifying laps every lap to stay out front. Fortunately the guys behind me were racing each other pretty hard which gave me a gap and helped me get the win. I have been able to win allot of races in Minimax but this is my first win in Rotax Junior so it feels pretty good to have won in only my 5th race”
I would like to thank my mom and dad for supporting me and letting me race. I would also like to thank Kevin Perry and P1 Racing for tuning my kart and coaching me. Our Tony Kart was strong all weekend. I would also like to thank Tony and Ben from Supertune Engines. Our engine was very strong. Finally I would like to thank my sponsors TCB Products and Global Components for all of their support. |
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