The good, the Brad' and the Ugly

Londoner criticises poor driving standards at Euro Champs

Like fellow 100cc PR client Robert Foster-Jones, Richard Bradley also had an eventful European kart championship at Salbris, France (5 August).

“On Saturday the driving standards were good, but by Sunday things got a little out of hand. I was deliberately driven off the circuit by one driver. The stewards were going to penalise him but once they realised that he hadn’t qualified for the Finals, they let the matter go. It shows how desperate people were getting.”

Richard’s weekend hadn’t started much better either - with set-up problems hampering his run during Timed Qualifying, he could only clock the 44th fastest time (out of 71). This meant that he would start each of his heats well down the grid, but as he has shown in previous races, when it comes to racing wheel to wheel and passing people – he’s a master.

Bradley finished 9th in each of his first three heats – even surviving a drama in the third race, “The first corner after the start is always a pretty hairy place to be in karting and in the 3rd heat I got caught up in an accident. One of the drivers was thrown out of his kart and was lying on the track. The front of my kart was bashed-in and I’d bent the steering but otherwise, I was fine. The race was stopped and the team did a brilliant job to repair my kart in time for the re-run. I got a cracking start and was moving through the field but my helmet was lifting under acceleration. I put my hand to my throat and realised that in the rush to fix my kart, I’d forgotten to fasten my helmet straps. I had to drive the race with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding my helmet on!”

Despite being punted off the circuit in his 4th race, the 15-year old managed to qualify 22nd overall in the intermediate classification. This meant that he would start on the 12th row of the grid for the Pre-Final.

By lap 4 of the race the Colfes School pupil was up to 16th and moving through the traffic well – when Frenchman, Clement Bluy arrived. 

“It was a crazy move. He (Bluy) went for a gap that wasn’t there and forced me into Rob (Foster-Jones)”. Richard fell to last, but managed to recover to 27th place.

With victory virtually impossible, all he had to race for in the Final was pride – plus a place in the World Cup finals (23 September at Mariembourg, Belgium). Unfortunately for him, another French driver – Julien Deschamps – wasn’t about to make life any easier. “Deschamps made no attempt to pass me, he just drove me off the track” fumed Bradley. “Any chance either of us had of a decent position went the moment he hit me. I think he lost his head and was desperate to get as far up the field, as quickly as he could. It’s the nature of winner-takes-all events like this.”

Despite his woes, Richard was one of the 34 drivers who made the cut to compete at the World Cup in September. Victory there will certainly attract the attentions of key motor racing teams but he’s cautious about talking up his chances - “To win at this level, everything has to be right – the kart, the engine and of course, the driver. But you also need a little bit of luck. I didn’t have much at this meeting but you never know, it might all change in Belgium”.
 

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