GRAND PRIX SAIHM GPM · Course Race⏱ 1h31

The 91-minute endurance race at Karting Circuit Paul Ricard (964 m) on 11 November 2026 brought together 15 teams for a demanding contest that rewarded both pace and consistency over the full distance.

GPM (kart #24) took a commanding victory, completing 54 laps and lapping the field by more than a full lap ahead of the chasing pack. Their winning margin over second place was classified as a full race lap, underlining total control from start to finish. GPM also set the fastest lap of the entire race with a 1:01.653, stamped in their fourth and final stint.

The fight for second was intense. LES 2 SALOPARDS (kart #6) crossed the line in second on 52 laps, 1:01.544 ahead of BIEN SUR FAUT IMAGINER (kart #1), who completed the same 52 laps but came home one lap down on the leader. PICHAT (kart #3, 53 laps) and NICOBERT RACING TEAM F1 (kart #20, 53 laps) rounded out the top five, separated by just under a minute at the flag.

All 15 teams completed 3 pit stops each, making strategy a level playing field — the differences came down to raw pace and consistency on track.

From a pure pace perspective, GPM was untouchable: a median race pace of 1:02.918 (best of the field) and a standard deviation of just 1.07 s (most consistent team). Their four stints were all marked as stable in terms of degradation, with the second stint delivering an exceptional median of 1:02.639 and the fourth producing the fastest lap of the race.

The standout story of the race was GPM SUD (kart #19), which delivered the second-best pure pace of the entire field with a median of 1:04.192 and solid regularity (1.54 s standard deviation), yet finished only 8th. The gap between their pace ranking (2nd) and their classified position points to time lost elsewhere during the race, making theirs the most thought-provoking performance of the day.

BIEN SUR FAUT IMAGINER (3rd place, 3rd best pace at 1:04.460) showed the highest inconsistency in the top three with a standard deviation of 2.06 s, their second stint proving notably slower at a median of 1:06.736. LES 2 SALOPARDS (2nd place, 4th best pace) similarly saw a difficult second stint at 1:06.563, before recovering strongly in stints 3 and 4.

RENNAISE (10th, kart #7) is highlighted by the data as a team that outperformed their pure pace ranking: classified 10th despite having only the 15th-best median pace (1:09.466), suggesting effective time management during the race. At the other end of the spectrum, MONSTER (kart #26, 14th) showed the heaviest degradation of any team across any single stint, losing 0.51 s per lap during their first stint.

Key takeaways for teams: At Karting Paul Ricard, consistency across all four stints proved decisive — GPM's near-perfect degradation profile across 54 laps was the template. Teams such as LES 2 SALOPARDS and BIEN SUR FAUT IMAGINER demonstrated that a slow middle stint can be recovered, but it costs laps that are hard to claw back at this pace. GPM SUD's pace-versus-position gap is a reminder that pure speed must be converted into clean, uninterrupted lap-counting to translate into results.