31^st Trofeo Andrea Margutti, 13-15^th November 2020

16 drivers with nine different nationlities in the OK Junior category, including Roy Shaw, are in the much rescheduled 31^st Trofeo Andrea Margutti, at the 7-Laghi international circuit in Castelletto di Branduzzo over the middle weekend in November.

Wednesday 11th November

Practice

Roy’s engine was performing noticeably better than it had the previous weekend, with a different carburettor from the one used for the Swiss Championship.

Roy continued to improve his racing lines and his times, now with input from coach Gianluca Beggio. By the end of the day he was up with the leading drivers, so everything to go for as untimed practice continues on Thursday, with only 4 sessions of 10 minutes each.

Thursday 12th November

Practice

Roy continued to work on his racing lines and his times, mixing it with the leading drivers, during the 4 sessions of 10 minutes each. The team seem to have found a good setup for the chassis and the race engine/carburettor, Friday's timed sessions will tell.

Friday 13th November

Results

http://youcrono.it/Pagina/3168/RisultatiMargutti2020

Free Practice 09:26

On a damp but drying track, the team waited a couple of laps before sending Roy out. He was quickly settling purple sectors, and fastest lap early on. At the flag he was 5th fastest.

Friday 13th November

Official Practice 11:37

On a dry track and with new tyres for a qualifying simulation, Roy set a top 3 time on his 2nd lap, and did his fastest time on lap 3. The following 3 laps, however, were all yellow sectors, presumably because the initial tyre pressures had been set too high. A disappointing 13th at the end of the session.

Qualifying 14:26

Qualifying was the usual shambles, with many of the leading drivers waiting until only 4 minutes of the scheduled 8 minutes remained. Roy went out a minute before, following the eventual pole sitter. A couple of laps later, as they approached the massed mess of last-minuters, the eventual pole sitter backed off a massive amount, but Roy unfortunately got tangled up and delayed. Again a disappointing 13th, for the second time on this Friday 13th...

Saturday 14th November

Warm-up 09:52

As Roy took to the track for warm-up, his immediate reaction was that he felt like driving around to bring the kart straight back to the paddock. The team had decided, without any discussion with him, to change his driving position, a bizarre decision on a race day when there had been plenty of opportunities to test such changes in practice. After bouncing around like a marionette for 10 minutes, Roy had one of the slowest times in 14^th position.

Heat 1 12:30

Roy made a reasonable start from 13^th place on the grid, conceding a place into the first two corners, but as he rounded the fourth corner the track was blocked by 3 karts in front of him. To avoiding them Roy braked almost to a halt, and the group who had caused the blockage were 2 to 3 seconds away in front by the time Roy and a following driver got going again. The two of them gave chase, but could not close the gap enough in the 11 laps, partly because Roy had been given a very unbalanced setup with too much front grip and not enough at the rear. On the technical part of the circuit he was drifting the corners, but managed to hold the following driver at bay. After penalties, and after a lot of hard work, Roy was classified 12^th.

Heat 2 15:50

Roy made a good start from 12^th, despite his side of the grid making a poor get-away at the third time of asking, which led to the poleman getting a 10 second penalty. By the fourth corner he was up to 11^th, and to 10^th on lap 2. On lap 4 another driver pushed past, on his way to 8th at the finish line, but he got a post-race penalty for spoiler damage so fell behind Roy in the official results. Roy continued his progress and good race pace, up to 10^th again on lap 8, in which position he crossed the finish line, then inherited 8^th place in the official results because of the afore-mentioned penalties. 

Sunday, 15.11.2020

Warm-up 09:35

The team had decided with Roy to try out a setup with one level higher grip, particularly the front. Roy discovered after the session that they had also changed the rims to a set which he had already informed them in practice that he disliked, which also tended to increase grip. At the start of the session that was more or less okay, but as it progressed he lost competitiveness, and was classified 12^th.

Pre-final 10:50

Starting from 9^th, Roy made a good start, and gained a place on the first lap. On lap 3 he made an overtake for 7^th, then lost a couple of places on lap 6 when 2 out of position faster drivers came through. On lap 13 he gained another place, and crossed the line in 8^th, to be classified 6^th after others’ penalties.

Final 13:40

The OK Junior final was the first on track after the lunch break, and the morning mist was even more present, with quite high, but cold, humidity, even a slight hint of rain droplets. Roy made a really good start from the outside of the grid, and came round in 6^th, which he held for the first two and a half laps, in touch with the leaders in a group covered by 2 ½ seconds. The team and the coach had told him to drive with as little steering input as possible, keeping movements quiet and gentle so as to get the best out of the new tyres fitted for the final, so that is what he did. He was confused, however, by the apparent lack of grip, both for cornering and drive out of the corners.

Half way round lap 3 that led to him being vulnerable into the far (so-called “restaurant”) corner, and he was overtaken. The same happened on the next two laps, then he lost further places at the hairpins on subsequent laps, and faded back to 12^th. From trackside, one could hear the screech of Roy’s tyres, much louder than other karts, as they scrabbled for grip in the fast first corner. It was only in the last 5 or 6 laps that the kart started to give the necessary grip for Roy to match the times of the midfield, and although he gained 3 places to cross the finish line in 9^th, the lack of mid-race pace had put him out of touch. Unfortunately, even that was not the end of the story, since he got a 5 second penalty for front spoiler damage, inflicted when one of the more aggressive drivers had passed him, to be classified a disappointing 11^th.

With 20/20 hindsight one wonders whether the team had missed the obvious: presumably the cold conditions, added to the gap of (lunch)time since the circuit had been used, meant that it took longer and much more input to get the tyres into their operating temperature range. If so, the advice they had given Roy to keep movements gentle was a recipe for failure.

Results. http://youcrono.it/Pagina/3168/RisultatiMargutti2020

Photo Album: 31st Trofeo Andrea Margutti Album

Onboard: 7-Laghi Onboard