Race ace takes charge of new Pantano kart

2024 Super One InterMAX kart champion Jenson Sayell took delivery of his brand new Pantano kart at Rowrah in Cumbria at the weekend.It was a solid start to this year’s campaign with a win and second in the heats and third place podium in Saturday’s Round One and another third and a fifth on Sunday’s Round Two.Sayell, from Marshland St James, headed the table through most of Saturday’s qualifying session but met a backmarker on the final lap, missing pole by just five-thousandths of a second.The weekend started very well with Sayell winning Heat One with a faultless drive and excellent pace.The youngster took the lead on lap three of Heat Two but was pushed quite robustly in the hairpin on the final lap, sending him very wide, recovering well to finish runner-up, 0.2 second behind.Having qualified second on the grid in the Final it proved a frustrating race.An error by another driver resulted in his riding up the back of Sayell to push him off the track and damaging the new kart. Sayell did well to recover and finish on the podium in third. With the kart repaired overnight, Sunday’s qualifying session saw Sayell finish fourth. Heat one was short lived however with Sayell going straight on into the gravel trap on lap one. Having lost too much time extracting the kart, the team retired to save the tyres.Heat Two’s start was better with Sayell into third place on lap one, which he held to the flag but suffering a lack of power.The DNF in heat one resulted in a grid slot of 12th of 23 for Sunday’s Final. The team having changed a few components the power was better and taking three consecutive fastest laps whilst also overtaking Sayell made up seven places (more than any other driver in the race) to finish an excellent fifth.“TW Racing had collected Jenson’s new Pantano kart from Italy, and I built it up to fit Jenson once we arrived on Thursday,” said his dad Rob. “The new kart has some improvements from the prototype he used last month.”Overall, it was a solid weekend in the new kart; we still need to learn more about setup up and had Jenson not had undue contact on Saturday and the ‘off’ on Sunday he could well have had more wins. “I’m confident Jenson is going to be very competitive in the Pantano.”Sayell returns to the CKC Championship for Round Two at Shenington Oxfordshire later this month and hopes to do more testing in the meantime.He thanks TWR and Pantano plus Force Motorsport for their support over the weekend and sponsors JLK Vehicle Solutions, Ark East Anglia Ltd, Sun Lounge Tanning Studio, Chris Phillips – Superstox 99, Hall Clean, Prestige Designs and Custom Racewear for their continued encouragement and supp