Another Disappointing Way To Start The Season....

Starting the season poorly has almost become a trend with Kabort Motorsport - Season 3, 2019 - our first ever endurance race (VRS Endurance) we had massive "teething issues" (since it was Kabort's first race) which included not being able to get a driver into the session, and many crashes. In Season 4, it was the turn of Road America in the ELMS (Endurance Le Mans Series) to cause us problems - only the GTE (Out of Marco Marozzi's solo team, a GTE and an LMP) managed to finish. This would be the first of several of non-finishes for the LMP1. Half way into the 6 race season would be the first time the LMP1 saw the checkered flag. Spa Francorchamps, ELMS, Week 1, Season 1, 2020 I wasn't participating in this race, due to the fact that I had a large amount of college work, and also the fact that my family had people over, so I couldn't sit in the "driver's seat" and control everything. Problems first arose when at 17.08 - less than an hour before the race, Marco told me that he couldn't qualify due to being out. Unfortunately I told this to the team much too late, and there had to be a quick scramble moments before qualifying. New driver Mete Taha Kose - who was making his debut at Spa qualified, but unfortunately made a mistake on either his opening/flying lap, and therefore did not have enough time to put in a valid time. The mood was slightly dampened as we had to start dead last on the grid. From 45th, we had a half decent start and jumped 5 places up to 40th, despite losing a few positions, we gained even more and climbed high into the 30's - at one point reaching 29th. Unfortunately Cheng (Zhong)'s stop was slightly extended due to repairs, but that was OK because Madman Marco was in next. He took the car from 38th up to 35th but as the track was so long, it was incredibly difficult to make up positions. Despite a few more ups and downs, 34th is all we could manage. There were a few factors in this slightly mediocre race - the fact that I told the team that Marco wouldn't be present during the first stint, the fact that practice wasn't properly enforced - especially with a new car, the tyres degrading quicker than expected, and a few occasions of other drivers causing us problems. I'm not mad, angry or disappointed. I am glad - I'm glad we could make it to the end - especially with being so close to a penalty...and the fact that we can take much information away from this race. Practice is certainly needed and plans need to be made a couple of days prior to the race. Finally, I'd like to mention that this is not going to be the level we race at this season. This is only a small little trip, and the best thing we can do from here is pick ourselves up, use what we've learnt from the tough result and propel us to higher before.

Endurance Le Mans Series, Spa Francorchamps, Week 1, Season 1, 2020

ET: 45

P: NLC

Q: DNQ

R: 34th

F: 39

S: 45!

SOF: 1943

Eleven9 Motorsport I will be introducing this section into the blogs for season 1 2020 because it's incredibly relevant. When we lost the drivers we did, one of the drivers from my team, Joseph, stood up and started his own team - he saw that there was issue(s) with Kabort, and came up with a very clever and sensible option. Since all of Eleven9's drivers are from Kabort, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two and how they get on throughout the duration of both the season, the year and longer term. Not to see which is better, or "were they right to leave" or to "Sh*t-Talk" or advertise the other team - just as a pure comparison between the two - and perhaps if we can use their "victories" or "wins" to help propel us forward. This will be incredibly interesting if we are put in the same split, and have an on-track battle and help Kabort go forward. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to go into nearly as much detail - but simply state what I see as follows: Split: 3 (we were split 4)

Qualified: Pole (Jamie Moylan) Finished: 7th Something must have happened during the race which caused them trouble - weather that's faster cars that qualified lower, or some other known issue - but despite finishing higher, the race is the important part - and whilst we gained, they unfortunately lost out.