The new dawn of Racing begins (Mantorp 2025)
Yep! It's me, Pete Norback, back on the saddle of the Aquila Formula 1000 car and it's championship! This blog will summarize how the weekend went (From Pre-Weekend to Race 3), my thoughts on the weekend, and finally, driver of the day! And of course, we will begin with the weekend!
And as most of you know, I have a new livery, logo, coach, and driving for 2025. Before the weekend started, I managed to practice at my local race track (Mittsvergiebanan) one time and already found significant improvement, the most notable was my braking which is now much sharper than last year. Of course, being back into the race weekend, it was liberating for me, it was a fleeting feeling to be back into the Aquila Championship. The one thing I did notice was the new drivers and teams. There were rookies who just got into the cars of motorsport like Agnes Varland and Albin Gustavson and drivers who had experience in other kinds of sports like Celina Hessman. The new team was KEDA Motorsports, a team owned and managed by the 2024 Runner-up AF1000 champion racing driver, Kevin Suenson who is now putting his expertise into use and now coaches Oscar Mellstig and Devan Grabko. However, all of these drivers have experience from karting so that experience was already put in the right car.
Pre-Weekend: I was now coached under the wing of 2023 NXT Gen champion Elias Adestam and he provided me with a-lot of insights to the track. The track had been resurfaced in Turn 1, Paris, Mjolby, Kronet and F2 Kurvan which made the grip of the track heavily increased during the drive. However, Turn 1 was also used in drifting, which unfortunately substantially reduced the grip on the outside of the turn, which I would suffer the consequences of multiple times.
Practice: The practice overall was not so great. The practice was meant for me and my team to test out the new things we put on the car (Protection on the side of the floor f. ex) and to test the waters of grip. However, this was cut short about 5-7 minutes into the practice where I drove off to the drifting rubber of Turn 1 and accelerated, leading me to spin out dunk my car onto the gravel trap. I was not able to move the car through conventional (Reverse gear) and non-conventional means (Towing, and Being pushed) and was subsequentially retired after needing to be lifted out of the circuit. However, thanks to the protection, there was no significant damages.
Qualifications: Thanks to the coaching of Elias Adestam and the minor slipstream I had with Fredrick Lindholm and William Isakson, I was able to score a great laptime, however, because my slipstream was not strong, I got settled down to P11.
Race 1: Race 1 I drove strongly. Race 1 had very little yellow flags, No SC nor red flags so it was a clean race overall. I managed to overtake William Isakson (Who started alongside me) and had a fight with Kalle Svenson. I tried to do a lunge on Kalle on the F2 kurvan on the last lap however, I locked up and allowed Kalle to re-overtake me which put me down to P10. It was a good race overall.
Race 2: This was the best race overall. It was very pressuring and tiring but in the end it was all worth it. There was an amazing fight in the midfield. I was primarily fighting with Fredrick Lindholm, William Isakson and Jonathan Ohlander and there was a-lot of pushing around, which made the fighting even more fun. The fighting was so close, during one of the laps, there was a 3 wide entry into Mjolby. During the last lap, I managed to do an All-or-Nothing lunge into the F2 kurvan against Fredrick Lindholm but this time, it worked and I managed to defend my way into P8. Gud race
Race 3: This race unfortunately wasn't my best. During the early stages of the race, a driver (Literally can't tell who it was because everyone just has a black car) spun out on Mjolby and tossed dirt onto the inside part of the track. Because everyone was driving over it sometimes, I saw a clean patch which I thought I could get through to overtake but it was in-fact NOT clean and I spun out. Taking me down to P15. I however managed to overtake a driver and Marcus Papp to catch P13 by the end of the race.
Overall, the race was a massive improvement, primarily because of Elias Adestams coaching whom focused more on the overall part of the driving, rather than targeting the driving for the circuit. His way of teaching was similar to Suellio Almedia who is an amazing coach. Elias is an amazing coach and If any of you can, please support his racing career, so that he can get back onto the seat of the racing car. The weekend compared to my 2024 year overall was a big jump and I could not have done it without Mittsvergiebanan's support, Motus and Elias Adestam. So thank you all and into the Mittsvergiebanan we go!
BUT WAIT. I will not round off this blog without driver of the day, so lets get to it!
Overall: Andreas Skatteboe! His performance compared to last year was a substantial improvement. 2024 was not his year as he had many mechanical problems and issues which slowed him down. However, ever since the Knutstorp race, he made a huge leap, catching the overall victory of the 3 races and P2 on the Qualifications.
Junior: Leonel Skaar! I mean, if you watched the live-streams, I wouldn't need to explain why. He probably took some Richard Olsson DNA and began driving like an absolute lion. Compared to last year, he was so much better. I am very surprised by his performance gain and I loved how he improved so much. Leonel, If you are reading this, nice racing and I hope to see more into the coming race weekends!