IAME Euro Winter Cup at Valencia – Alfie Slater

After a long winter break Alfie was back in the seat ready to start a fresh season with a years experience under his belt. His return would be at the Lucas guerro circuit at Valencia for the winter cup.

Throughout practice Alfie looked strong putting in solid lap times compared to everyone else but with a sudden crash in the session before qualifying put him on the back foot. After the crash he had to go on to another kart and was a session behind but it was all about track position. As the green flag went Alfie seemed to be in a good position on the track. He was setting solid times and was up to 6th but on his best lap didn’t get a tow and ended up 10th in his group which was still good without a tow.

Starting 9th for the heats Alfie was ready to have his first race since Vegas and was nervous but excited. He had a good start made his was up to 7th but a little mistake on the 3rd lap caused him to hit a kerb and made it effect the fuel pipe inside the tank. This caused the the engine to slow down and Alfie’s mechanic waved him in to save further problems

The second heat Alfie had a rough start and was down to 12th after the first lap was battling his way back then got hit into the last chicane. This caused him to get a slow exit and there was a bunch of karts altogether coming across the start finish line. All of a sudden all the drivers where trying to squeeze each other to gain positions and Alfie was caught in the middle and got hit off the track causing him to spin out and lose half a lap.

With a bad first 2 heats he was going into the 3rd hoping for a bit of luck and ready to have a top 5 finish. The race started and he didn’t quite get the best start again dropping down to 12th. As the race went on Alfie’s lack of race time showed he was a bit rusty and didn’t quite make the best decisions and finished the race in 18th position.

With the bad luck in the heats meant Alfie was in the dreaded B final starting 6th and it was the top 6 that went through to the A final. Alfie got a good start and was in 4th after the first corner but into the middle chicane he get hit from behind causing Alfie to hit the guy in front of him. After a few laps the top 4 broke away with Alfie being in 3 position and also setting the fasted lap of the weekend up to that point. Alfie was going for second position but the his competitor was making it hard so Alfie just decided to sit in 3rd and finish there as he would’ve still made the A final. As Alfie crossed the line in 3rd he was on his way to the A final until he came in the pits and realised he had a nose cone penalty which is a 5 second penalty and would’ve put him 10th unfortunately meaning he didn’t make the A final.

A very disappointing weekend for Alfie considering how strong he finished the season last year. But this was only the start of a long season and a determined Alfie will defiantly bounce back and come back strong.