It was sadly not the return to the MSA Kartmasters British Kart Grand Prix Callum Bradshaw was hoping for. The 2016 Junior X30 Champion arrived back in hope of a victory, although his lack of track time in the UK was going to make that task very difficult. But Callum gave himself a great chance of a win after finishing sixth in the Pre-Final until a post-race penalty left him watching the Final at PFI from the side-lines.
Senior X30 has become the blockbuster grid of Kartmasters over the last few years with bumper grids attracting the best drivers both past and present to the field from all over Europe! Callum was amongst those returning to UK racing to take part and would have two days of qualifying and heats before the all-important finals day.
Despite having not raced in the UK for some time Callum picked up where he left off qualifying thirteenth overall just 0.16 seconds off pole positon. Callum then went on to finish in the top ten in both heats with a best result of seventh. It wasn’t quite what he was hoping for, but it kept him very much in play going into Saturday.
However, day two turned out to be a challenging one for Callum. Qualifying down in 31st place put him down the grid for both his heats and with the grid so competitive getting good results was going to be difficult. An incident in the first heat left him recovering to nineteenth, but heat two was a lot more promising with Callum going from 21st to ninth!
The mixed results left Callum down in nineteenth on the grid for the Pre-Final which was certainly not the end of the World. If you can make it anywhere in the top ten on the grid in the Final, then you are in with a great chance of victory and that was certainly Callum’s aim going in to the twelve-minute race.
Despite being right in the middle of the field Callum managed to avoid any dramas on the opening lap and got himself straight up to fifteenth with the leaders still very much in sight! The progress didn’t stop there and by lap four Callum was already knocking on the door of the top ten!
With one minute to go Callum was eighth and with the five leaders now fully locking horns, it wasn’t going to be long until Callum was fighting for a race win!
Going onto the final lap Callum lay seventh having joined the lead group and immediately gained a position going under the bridge. Now in sixth Callum was very much in the middle of a queue for the lead which stretched back as far as eighteenth! With the group, so close there was no opportunities to make moves and Callum would sensibly settle for a row three start in the final. It was tremendous progress which came at a crucial stage of the weekend!
Or at least it would, but sadly along the way to his sixth-place Callum had dropped his front fairing resulting in a five second penalty which would have seen him drop back to eighteenth. Callum wasn’t alone in taking the wrong decision to try and reattach the fairing resulting in a disqualification from the meeting.
It was a momentary lapse in judgement, with frustration clearly high after such a good drive was set not to be rewarded and rather than trying to charge through the field in the final Callum would have to watch on from the side-lines.
Callum will have to quickly move on from this with the IAME Euro Series finale coming up in just a few weeks time where he will go head to head with Mark Kimber for the title!
