Dubai: She may be beating the daylights out of her male competitors as she races against them in all corners of the globe, but when it comes to racing in Dubai, there is no more pleasing experience for Fabienne Lanz, one of the world’s fastest female kart racers. The 25-year-old will be back at the Dubai Kartdrome in October with champions Batelco Team and told XPRESS from her home South Africa why she is looking forward to the event.
“The Batelco Team will be racing the 12hr on October 12 and 13. I am really looking forward to that as the team itself had a summer break and we are all looking forward to seeing each other again. The Batelco Team is a very awesome team and we really are like a family.
“We will then return in December for the 24hr on 14 and 15 and the week before that the team will race the 24hr in Bahrain.”
The karting star’s latest exploits came at the Rotax African Open where she finished on the podium despite the presence of a couple of former champions. It was a tall order for Fabienne to reach the front of the 23 kart Rotax DD2 grid in an unfamiliar kart but she relished the challenge against double Rotax champions, Caleb Williams and Christiano Morgado and finished runners up.
The race went well as Fabienne picked her way through the field and finished in a hard fought 7th position, posting the 2nd fastest lap time, giving a second grid start for the Pre Final 2. After getting a good start Fabienne finished in 3rd place for the Pre Final 2 after being overtaken by Williams but she clung on to the position.
The 7th and 3rd positions from the two pre finals gave Fabienne the perfect position to start the Final penultimate race in 3rd position. The start of the 20 lap Final went well, with no incidents or crashes. She then tucked in behind Justin Allison as he was in 2nd place and Luca Canderle in the lead. Following another kart through the thunderdome was tricky as it is the fastest part of the track with a roller coaster right hand corner which is taken in almost flat-out speed. When driving behind a competitor through this corner, Fabienne lost a lot of time as the kart had no down force and caused understeer, meaning Fabienne lost some time by having to back off the throttle.
“We started lapping the slower guys in about lap 17 and in lap 18, a backmarker held Justin up a bit climbing up the hill out of the steep downhill Kangaroo corner, which allowed me to close the gap. As we raced down towards Hockey Stick Corner, I made my move and dived to the inside to take 2nd position. I then maintained it and the following lap Justin tried to overtake me in the same corner I overtook him the previous lap, but I accelerated and kept my position and claimed the runner up position” said Fabienne.
“I want to give a big thank you to all in the team for their endless hard work getting the kart perfectly fixed and their support and a huge thank you to our sponsors: Batelco Racing; Gary Stephenson Computing; 1st Race; Peter Lanz Motorsport and Artstar for their continued support,” she added.
