Ed Brand made a dream start to his British Super 1 kart championship campaign by winning the first race of the season - and then followed it up with a fine runner-up spot in the second.
If he was suffering from any nerves about working with an unfamiliar team - on a kart he was still learning about and having the reigning champion as his team-mate - he didn’t let them show.
In tricky, wet conditions on Saturday (20 March), ACR Birel’s new signing was fourth-fastest in timed qualifying.
From this promising start, the 15-year old comfortably won his first heat and took third in the return encounter to see him in pole position for the first of Sunday’s two points-scoring finals.
“To take the P1 position on my debut with my new team and having just made the step up from the junior to senior ranks was just fantastic, but it’s far from ‘job done’,” he said before the start of the first final.
With twenty nine of Britain’s fastest and most talented drivers swarming all over him, Ed was initially pushed wide and lost the advantage. Dropping down to fourth place, he staged an immediate fightback. Making short work of the drivers ahead of him, he found himself in second place and harrying the leader. Brand pounced under braking for a tight hairpin and from there was able to take a commanding victory.
With little time to celebrate, he was back on the grid lining up for the second final.
A magnificent start saw him hold onto his advantage to lead the field across the start/finish line and with drama and crashes behind him, he looked to be holding all the aces.
That was until his Birel team-mate, Michael Simpson finally cleared the traffic and began hunting him down.
Simpson caught Ed and passed him with an incisive manoeuvre. As the pair ran in line astern, Brand probed and pressed for a way past, but ultimately had to settle for second best rather than risk a collision.
“World-class guys like Simmo rarely make mistakes,” he observed with a smile afterwards. “I tried everything I could to force one but Mike had everything covered, and I didn’t want to commit the cardinal sin of crashing into him and letting another driver win. It’s great that we’re both new leading the championship and with a long way to go (six further rounds) there’ll be plenty more chances for me to beat him!”
This weekend sees Ed back in action, in the opening round of the Euro Max Challenge at Salbris in France.
