Successful Karting Comeback

After Deans GT Season coming to an end, he decided to go back to karts for another race and participate in the Iame X30 World Championship in France Le Mans.

Dean competed with Strawberry Racing as he did at the Iame winter cup at the beginning of the year where he went on to win. He was placed in the Snr Pro Class where it is invitation only and was joined by many World, European and British Champions. It was definitely shaping up the be a very competitive grid.

The preparation for the race started 1 week before with testing from Friday to Monday and then would be Qualifying Tuesday, Heats from Wednesday to Friday and the Finals on Saturday. The Strawberry Team were more than prepared for this race and was shaping up good for them and Dean in the practices leading up to Qualifying. The conditions proved to be hard, not only for the competitors but for the teams as well by making numerous changes to the karts before each session. Dean went on to qualify Pole overall after a half wet half dry session with the times from the drivers tumbling every lap but the Strawberry team came out on top after locking out the front row for the heats. With taking 2 wins from 4 in the heats, Dean lined up in 3rd position for Final 1 on the Saturday.

Final 1 was ran in a wet condition and the trio of Dean, Harry Thompson and Morgan Porter raced away from the rest of the field, after Dean running in second for the majority of the race he slipped down to 3rd on the last lap but this proved to be an advantage going into the main Final as this would give him the inside line for turn 1.

The sun decided to make an appearance before the Main final and this would mean that the race would be run on slick tyres. Dean managed to slot himself into second place at the start and after the race getting messy for the first 5 laps between the front of the field, he then made his move to the lead on lap 6 of 21. From then on, he kept the lead for the rest of the race by pulling out a gap but with 2 laps to go he was put under pressure from the Nico Rosberg Academy Kart of Taylor Barnard. This didn’t seem to pressure Dean into any mistakes and managed to keep Barnard at bay and take the Chequered flag to crown himself and Straberry Racing Iame X30 Snr Pro World Champions !!

Dean made it 2 wins from 2 races this year in karts 🏆