after being ‘robbed’ of Glan Y Gors victory
Ryan Anderton will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing end to the third round of the 2011 Super 1 Series at Glan Y Gors when he returns to the demanding North Wales circuit for the upcoming Formula Kart Stars (FKS) outing – after being ‘robbed’ of a deserved victory on the very last lap.
Unable to do battle for the title in Super 1 following his contentious exclusion from the PF International curtain-raiser on technical grounds, Ryan’s sole aim in the championship now is to win races to prove his potential, but after uncharacteristically struggling in the preceding Rowrah ‘O’ Plate meeting, the highly-rated Somerset speed demon headed to Glan Y Gors a little unsure about his prospects and hoping that the issues that had hampered him in Cumbria would not re-materialise.
Describing it as ‘really undulating, and a fun circuit to drive...and in the wet, it’s even more challenging’, the distinctly inclement conditions over the course of the Super 1 weekend suited Ryan down to the ground, but he nonetheless anticipated a fierce battle up against some 30 Comer Cadet class adversaries representing the very crème de la crème of young British talent at that level – except that it would be rather fiercer than he would have liked in the second final. Still, qualifying a close second on a treacherously greasy track was an excellent start.
“I’ve always driven well in the wet,” acknowledged the Glastonbury-based hotshot. “Engine power doesn’t really matter as much as in the dry – it all equalises out a bit and comes down to who has the best lines, who has the best braking-points, who can put the power down the earliest, who turns in at the best moment... You don’t need ridiculous amounts of power in the wet – yes, that always helps, but it’s nowhere near as important. Talent is what counts.”
Initially running second in his opening heat race, carburettor troubles caused Ryan to slip as low as 16th place at one stage as he endeavoured to rectify them. Powerless to prevent his rivals from coming past him, once he had resolved the problem, the St. Dunstan’s Community School pupil fought back well indeed to 12th at the chequered flag. Heat two, similarly, should have yielded more than it ultimately did.
“I was in the lead, but then someone came up the inside of me and at the same time, another driver went up the inside of him,” he recounted. “They both slid into me, which spun me round. I dropped to tenth because of that, a little way behind the pack. After that, I just pushed as hard as I could and managed to come back through to fifth.”
A determined recovery and a gritty lesson in damage limitation, Ryan was gaining hand-over-fist on the leaders towards the end of the race, setting fastest lap along the way to demonstrate that he had far more pace than the results suggested. He went on to begin the first of the two finals from P9, and he made superb progress.
“I didn’t really have too much straight-line speed, so I couldn’t get past people down the long straight,” revealed the Fusion Motorsport star. “I worked together with a couple of other drivers to try to catch the leaders, and I was fourth with two laps to go, when the driver ahead really began defending hard. On the last lap, though, coming back down the hill and through the twisty section I managed to get my kart up the inside of him to take third, which was definitely a successful result from where we had started.
“In the second final, I moved up to second at the start and went past the leader on lap two. We then pushed each other away from the pack, all the way to the last lap, when coming down the hill he cut across the grass and went into the side of me. I got the lead back pretty much straightaway, but then when I turned in for the last corner he just T-boned me. There was no gap there for him to dive into.
“The contact pushed me out wide onto the grass, and because of the way we had been battling, two other drivers had managed to come into play, too, and one of them went past me so I ended up third. There was no need for the way he attacked me – you don’t push someone onto the grass like that. I just felt robbed.”
Having won at Glan Y Gors twice before, the 11-year-old should have left this time with the hat-trick, but after leading 14 of the race’s 17 laps, there was little doubt about who was the moral victor. Still feeling confident and vowing now to ‘put it behind me and focus on FKS’, Ryan is aiming for ‘a couple of top two finishes and good results in the heats, too, because that was where the championship was won last year’.
Currently sitting second in the FKS points table out of 48 competitors – a single marker shy of the lead following his dominant performance last time out at Three Sisters near Wigan, scene of his brilliant breakthrough British triumph – the best way for the West Country ace to rebound from his Super 1 frustrations would be to do so immediately. Don’t bet against him.
