Photo: KSP / FIA Karting

Taylor Barnard has been signed to race for the new BWR Motorsports team in ADAC Formula 4, where he will continue to represent Nico Rosberg’s academy.

Barnard was one the initial kart drivers supported by the Rosberg Racing Academy when it was set up by the 2016 Formula 1 world champion three years ago. It and BWR will have an official association going forward.

He graduated from junior to senior karting for 2019 and finished second in the world championship, a result he repeated in last year’s European championship.

Barnard also made his single-seater debut last year, contesting three Italian F4 rounds with the AKM Motorsport team linked to Dino Chiesa’s Kart Republic operation that has run him and other Rosberg proteges over recent seasons.

“I’m very happy to be with BWR Motorsports for my first full season in cars,” he said. “The team has a very good technical background and I’m confident for the future. After initial testing I cannot wait to start the season.”

Rosberg already has strong connections to BWR founder Erich Baumgartner, who engineered him in his Formula 3 days and has since worked with the Team Rosberg DTM squad.

“We are very happy to have Taylor in the team,” Baumgartner said. “We watched him already in karting. We are convinced that he is a great talent and in testing he showed his potential. As a new team coming back into single-seater racing we are proud to have him in the team.”

Barnard scored a best finish of ninth from his Italian outings last year – achieved at Monza from 25th on the grid – and also qualified second for the final race of the season at Vallelunga.

The post Rosberg protege Taylor Barnard to race for new ADAC F4 team BWR appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: CIK-FIA / KSP Reportages

Karting is the training ground of most drivers before single-seaters, and it’s always useful to check what’s happening in the major championships to see what future talents may eventually burst onto the scene

The CIK-FIA World and European championships are the main focus of the karting world, with their champions invited to the same prize giving gala as the winners of Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula E. That’s not to say that’s the only location of talent in the karting world though, with the WSK-organised events focused in Italy always providing a hotbed for top drivers, while several national championships are rivalling the continental series for talent, if not drama.

Delays caused by the global coronavirus pandemic this year meant some drivers were old enough to move up to more powerful karts and contest full seasons in those rather than switching machinery halfway through 2020, while others turned 15 in time to even go into Formula 4 before the bustle of end-of-year karting fixtures.

Some of the biggest events on the scene were called off, including the WSK Final Cup, Trofeo delle Industrie and the USA’s SuperNationals. Travel restrictions and academic calendars that were dotted all over the place denied many drivers the chance to compete internationally, and once schools did open again many became less lenient on taking time off for sport given the urgency to make sure students’ pulled in the learning deficit that had occurred during lockdown.

Then there was of course the disgraceful actions of Luca Corberi and his circuit-owning father at Lonato, where a clash with a rival launched the younger Corberi into the barriers during the race. He then took his bumper and tried throwing it at that same driver while racing action continued, and instigated a paddock brawl afterwards. Corberi elected to step away from kart racing for life, Italy’s national federation ACI suspended the licences of the family and their circuit, and the FIA launched an investigation under the eye of its karting president Felipe Massa, but so far there has been no public outcome.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli ITALY 14y/o
OK CIK-FIA European champion, WSK Euro Series champion   KA100 J & X30 Junior USA Winter Series champion

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 protege looked immediately at home in senior karting, after often looking unstoppable as a rookie in OK Junior karts in 2019, and massively impressed by winning four titles. It wasn’t an easy year on the kart though.

His OK debut came in January’s WSK Champions Cup, and he was straight on it. He took pole, and won his first heat with the fastest lap of the event. However, he missed the rest of the weekend, leaving him classified 43rd, after going down with a flu.

On his return a week later in WSK’s Super Master Series he took pole, added another heat win and finished 18th overall. Once back at peak physical condition he was at the top again, claiming pole and four preliminary race wins on the way to third in round two against experienced drivers, then in the back-to-back final two rounds during lockdown claiming another pole, four heat wins and victory in both pre-finals. He came second overall in round three, and needed fifth in round four to be champion. But an incident at the start of the title-deciding race dropped him to the back and cost him the title.

Antonelli’s year also ended on a low, as he broke his left leg and foot after crashing into Maya Weug’s kart in the wet final of the CIK-FIA World Championship, the biggest contest of them all. That had been one of the only competitions all year where Antonelli hadn’t looked like one of the overall favourites, although he did set the fastest lap of the Algarve event.

He was one of the four pacesetters in qualifying, split into groups for a 74-kart entry, and was second-best rookie in the heats. While he finished one heat down in 15th, he also won one against defending two-time champion Lorenzo Travisanutto, but was eventually classified 35th after his painful final crash.

The Italian also earned a first FIA title in the European championship. He was overall winner of two rounds, second place in the other, and a week after the finale also won the WSK Euro Series crown. In addition to third in the South Garda Winter Cup back in February, he also went on to come ninth in the Iberia-based Champions of the Future (CotF) series.

At the start of 2020 he made his final junior karting starts, winning two of the USA’s winter series with an unbeaten run in all eight of the event finals he contested.

Taylor Barnard BRITAIN 15y/o
OK WSK Champions & Open Cup winner, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship, 5th in CIK-FIA World Championship

While much of the media wrote that Nico Rosberg was making a first foray into team management when he announced in October he was entering Extreme E, his pre-existing karting team had been busy winning races with British protege Taylor Barnard. In 2019 he announced himself immediately in senior karting by winning the WSK Champions Cup, and won it again at the start of 2020 before heading to the USA for two rounds of its winter series, coming 22nd in the X30 Senior class.

He came second in the opening Super Master Series (WSK SMS) round, had a bumper penalty demote him to 10th in the South Garda Winter Cup, then came fifth in the WSK SMS points once karting resumed after lockdown. He joined the WSK Euro Series opener at Sarno too, and a heat win and sixth in the final left him 15th overall as he skipped the other rounds.

While these results weren’t spectacular, Barnard was delivering in the more hotly-contested CIK-FIA events. In the first European championship round at Zuera, he took pole and won all of his heats – one of very few to do so in top-class karting in 2020 – which put him on pole for the final. Antonelli got by on lap one, and he could only hound him thereon.

Barnard claimed the points lead at Sarno with another perfect run to the final, and this time converted it into a lights-to-flag win. In the Wackersdorf finale he was fourth fastest in his qualifying group, but that didn’t cost him the title against Antonelli. Following a strong first two heats, a bumper penalty in heat three dropped him to 16th and he lined up eighth for the final. He was fifth by lap two, and was third before another bumper penalty left him sixth. As a result, Antonelli just outscored him.

New opposition was then found in shifter karting and F4. Barnard struggled with starts in the KZ2 karts on his debut in the Euro Series, and came 46th, but drove KZs in a UK championship cameo at Fulbeck and was sixth in the final. In Italian F4 he impressed even more, almost scoring on his debut and starting his last race on the front row.

His year in OK karts ended pretty finely too. The CIK-FIA World Championship began by Barnard beating the victory favourites in their first heat together, and wins in the next two put him on pole for the final. But in the rain he could only come fifth. He came sixth in CotF, then successfully defended his WSK Open Cup crown with victory in nearly every race.

Morgan Porter BRITAIN 19y/o
Rotax Senior Max Int. Trophy winner, British Champion, British Kartmasters GP winner  OK 4th in CIK-FIA World Championship

Photo: Rotax Int. Trophy

Morgan Porter is used to domestic success, having won the British Kartmasters Grand Prix and been a title frontrunner in many British series during his time in junior karts, and this year he not only found form in senior karts but also did it abroad.

Most of his success came on Rotax-engined equipment, and at home that included becoming British champion for the first time and winning the grand prix at PFI for British F4 and karting outfit Argenti Motorsport.

Using the equivalent IAME-built X30 engines he was ninth in the Winter Cup, seventh in the British championship – falling out of title contention after a crash – and then fifth in the International Games for Kart Republic.

Before the International Games he entered the CIK-FIA World Championship for OK karts, looking to improve on the seventh place he claimed on his debut in 2019. In qualifying he was second fastest in his group, and was in the top five in all of his heats against a grid of that year’s OK class stars and many of its established frontrunners from previous years.

The rain definitely mixed things up in the final, but Porter was mistake-free on the way to fourth place behind a dominant Tony Kart podium lockout. His only OK experience in the 12 months prior had been CotF’s circuit visit, and he was 33rd in that.

Porter also went to the Rotax Max International Trophy at Algarve in mid-December, where the grid was formed of many of his British rivals and some of the stars of other Rotax-powered series across the globe.

The student bricklayer was second fastest in his qualifying group, then was narrowly denied three heat wins out of three. After winning the pre-final, few were betting against him for overall victory. He did just that, but the route there wasn’t easy as he fell to third on lap one, then made it back into the lead before dropping back to fourth and then fifth. On the final lap he climbed from third to first to claim his biggest karting win yet.

Nikita Bedrin RUSSIA 14y/o
OK WSK Super Master Series champion, Champions of the Future champion, 4th in WSK Champions Cup & Euro SeriesWard Racing’s Russian would have been the star rookie of senior karting in 2020 were it not for Antonelli, but he did a similarly as exciting job and was fighting for wins in everything he raced in.

Like Antonelli, Bedrin’s debut came in the Champions Cup and they were just a tenth of a second apart in qualifying. He was then just 0.273s from winning his first ever heat race, losing out to reigning World Junior champion and Spanish F4-bound Thomas ten Brinke, and crossed the line first in his second heat but was denied victory by a bumper penalty. The same occurred in the pre-final, and Bedrin then had a crazy run to fourth in the final after falling as low as 11th place.

That first win didn’t come in the WSK SMS opener either, despite taking pole, as he often slipped down the order from top grid spots. In among his up-and-down start he came fifth in the South Garda Winter Cup, taking his first heat win in the process.

On the return from lockdown Bedrin looked a much improved karter, and he went totally unbeaten in the next two WSK SMS rounds to win the title. That put him on a high going into the CIK-FIA European Championship.

He was a heat winner at Zuera, then led the early laps of the final before finishing third, and at Sarno he also took a heat win. A bad result in one of the other heats left him needing to charge up the order in the final, and he made it up to fourth. At Wackersdorf a 10s penalty for undertaking under yellow flags in one heat and a 10s penalty for a move the stewards looked unfavourably upon in another left him on the final’s 10th row, and his climb to 12th place earned him fourth in the points.

It was all part of the learning curve for Bedrin, whose WSK Euro Series campaign also included several heat wins and final podiums that again resulted in a top-four place in the standings despite missing the first round. His scoring rate was second only to the title-winning Antonelli, and his race pace usually exceeded his results.

Finishing lower than he started also hurt him in the world championship, ending up 29th, and he showed his pace at Algarve not only that weekend but the one before too, when he claimed the CotF title by finishing 15th from pole in the final.

Callum Bradshaw BRITAIN 19y/o
OK CIK-FIA World champion, 22nd in Champions of the Future, 34th in WSK Euro Series   X30 Senior 22nd in IAME Euro Series

Since winning the Andrea Margutti Trophy as a OK rookie in 2017, there hasn’t been a huge number of big event results for Bradshaw as he has focused on the cheaper championships using X30 engines.

His first crack at karting’s official world championship resulted in 11th place, and he improved to sixth on his second attempt. In 2019 he didn’t compete, but was second in the IAME Euro Series and was a finalist for the Volant Winfield.

He returned to the biggest stage in karting as a factory Tony Kart driver this year, warming up for it with part-time campaigns in multiple OK and X30 competitions.

Bradshaw’s OK efforts included 34th in the WSK Euro Series, making the final in both of the rounds he contested, and reaching the final in the CIK-FIA European Championship finale too. Lastly came the CotF warm-up at Algarve, where Bradshaw laid down his world champion credentials by charging up to fifth in the final.

In X30s he was even more impressive, finishing first and second in the opening two rounds of the British championship (but dropping to 37th in the points after skipping the rest of the season), and winning the sole IAME Euro Series round he entered. The equivalent of a black-and-orange flag got him disqualified from the final of the IAME Winter Cup, where he had been a frontrunner throughout and had led the final before picking up damage that led to him being classified 36th.

It was the world championship where he was against his toughest opposition, who he beat in his qualifying group to take pole. Two seconds places, a win and a fourth in the heats put him on the front row for the final alongside Barnard, and once the rain arrived the status of world champion was all basically secured within the first two minutes.

It took just over a lap to take the lead, but in the remaining 19 he stretched out a lead of over nine seconds before throttling back and having it reduced to 8.780s at the finish. Fastest lap unsurprisingly went to Bradshaw too.

Mathilda Olsson SWEDEN 19y/o
Rotax Senior Euro Trophy champion, 3rd in Swedish championship, 5th in Winter Cup   X30 Senior 16th in IAME Winter Cup

Photo: Prins Carl Philips Racing Pokal

Olsson now has two Rotax Max Euro Trophy titles to her name, but once again her lack of involvement in OK competition leaves question marks over how the Strawberry Racing driver checks up against the fastest in the open-engine formula.

Her year began in Rotax’s Euro Winter Cup at Campillos in Spain, going second in qualifying and making the podium in all of her heats to line up on the front row for the first final. She came third in that, 0.448s from victory, and 11th in final two.

The main season got going at Genk in Belgium, and Olsson kicked off proceedings with pole position, followed by victory and fastest lap in her opening heat. It was the same story in her second heat, and she was 0.669s off victory in the heat after that. From pole in the wet first final she finished a distant sixth though, and was third in final two to leave fourth in the points.

Qualifying didn’t go to plan in round two at Wackersdorft, but that didn’t stop her from winning all her heats and bagging pole for final one. She looked set for victory in that until an error on some dirt brought onto the track put her off and down to 10th. Olsson charged back up to fourth, a result she repeated in the second points-scoring final to take the series lead.

Adria hosted the season finale, as the second Genk trip was cancelled, and Olsson had a tricky time. She qualified and finish seventh for her first heat, albeit with fastest lap, and was pipped to victory by Zsombor Kovacs next time before winning her final heat. In a photo finish, Olsson edged Juho Valtanen to win the first final, then did it again in the final race of the season to become a two-time champion by some margin.

The European title, combined with wins in the Swedish championship, meant Olsson headed to the International Trophy at the end of the year. It wasn’t a great weekend, and she ended up a lap down in 33rd place in the final.

The equivalent contest for X30 Senior – the IAME International Games – ended even more sourly in 35th as she was out on lap two, after being fourth in the pre-final. In the IAME Winter Cup, her final was ruined by a bumper penalty. There were other reasons to smile in 2020, including a GT4 test with Prince Carl Philip after winning the karting race bestowed with his name.

Freddie Slater BRITAIN 13y/o
OKJ CIK-FIA World champion, WSK Open Cup champion, 2nd in South Garda Winter Cup, 3rd in Champions of the FutureA busy first full year in junior karting was also a very productive one for Slater as he became world champion.

Last year he gained mileage in X30 Junior, and stayed in the class for 2020’s IAME Winter Cup. After being denied group pole by 0.092s, he won his first heat by 0.084s. He was second in the pre-final and final before penalties, eventually coming fourth.

Slater’s OKJ debut in the Champions Cup was mostly for learning, but he was in the top five in all of his heats and was second in the pre-final. He was a penalised 14th in the final – his early form littered with racecraft errors and a qualifying deficit.

The South Garda Winter Cup was next, and he was runner-up from 10th on the grid. In WSK SMS he didn’t make it to the first two finals, but post-lockdown seemed a much improved racer; fifth and seventh in the next two rounds lifted him to eighth in the points. That was matched in WSK’s Euro Series with lowly qualifying results but strong pre-final performances.

Qualifying was his bugbear at the start of the CIK-FIA European Championship too, but by round two it looked improved as he was fifth in his group. Making his usual race gains from a higher grid spot, he took a heat win and two seconds. Retiring from his last one meant he started ninth for the final, but rose up the order and passed three drivers on the final lap to steal second. He couldn’t keep counting on overtaking for good results, and qualifying 10th for the Wackersdorf finale put him on the back foot. While he made the final, he was mired in the pack and was out after two laps, dropping him to seventh in the points.

The warm-up CotF events went better as Slater took group pole at Zuera. This time he was dropping places in heats instead, and came second in the final. At Algarve he started further back, finished fifth and actually came quite close to the title.

His Algarve return for the world championship started dramatically, as track limits abuse cost him his three best qualifying laps. He still came fifth in his group. Then by finishing no lower than fourth in the heats he ended up third on the grid for the final. Overtake two cars early on and he had victory sorted, right?

That’s kind of what happened, as Slater led every lap, but had to fight hard on the last one. Later that month he played the same trick in the WSK Open Cup, consistently rising up the order in the heats at Adria to set up a round and title win.

Connor Zilisch USA 14y/o
OKJ FIA Karting Academy Trophy winner, 25th in WSK Euro Series   Junior ROK & 100cc Junior Florida Winter Tour champion

Run in parallel to the world championship for junior drivers is the nation-focused, single-make FIA Karting Academy Trophy. This year Connor Zilisch of the USA won it, and he also starred on home soil.

His 2020 began in the Florida Winter Tour, and the destination of the 100cc Junior title looked decided after the first round as Zilisch absolutely dominated. He was beaten in two heats in round two, but still took the overall win again. It was a similar story in the final round, as he built a huge points margin over the likes of rising stars Westni Workman and Chloe Chambers.

He did the Junior ROK tour alongside, winning every race of round one, dominating the final of round two and beating Mercedes F1 junior Alex Powell to land the title in round three. The racing in Europe after would be the big test for Zilisch, but he knew what to expect as it was his second full year in juniors.

The first round of the Academy Trophy at Adria didn’t take place until August due to the pandemic, and Zilisch won two heats to put himself on pole for the final. From the front he took a crushing 4.810s win to begin another title run.

Like Slater there wasn’t many great qualifying results, but the race results kept landing and Zilich was on the podium in all of his heats in round two at Genk. He then won the final again, opening up another ominous championship lead.

Turning around his qualifying form for the Lonato finale propelled Zilisch to two more heat wins, but a collision with a rival led to him retiring early in the final. Such was his dominance, it had no impact on the 28-point advantage he won the title with.

Zilisch was always fighting for results from lower down the grid in his other races, entering two WSK Euro Series rounds, two European championship rounds (not making the final in either on the way to 49th), coming 44th from a WSK SMS cameo and looking quick in the world championship, despite a stall in one heat – before another opening lap final clash left him 27th.

Tuukka Taponen FINLAND 14y/o
OK 4th in WSK Open Cup   OKJ 2nd in CIK-FIA World championship, 3rd in CIK-FIA European Championship

Taponen’s third year in junior karting was by far his best, and he even made a splash when he made his OK debut in 2020.

The reigning Finnish Junior champion’s two main focuses arriving into the year were the CIK-FIA World and European championships, and were the two competitions he saved his best performances for.

He was the points leader after the first European round, taking pole, a heat win and then the final win from ninth on the grid. The Tony Kart driver took another heat win in round two, and was passed for third on the final lap of the final. Despite scoring no points in round three, he was still third best in Europe.

In the world championship he as ninth after the heats, although did well to recover from an opening lap plunge down the order in one to pull back a good result. His rise up to third in the final was also impressive in the wet, and that became second when Arvid Lindblad was given a bumper penalty.

Taponen also did the WSK Euro Series alongside the European championship, and that got off to a sublime start with three heat wins, the pre-final win and third in the final at Sarno. The Lonato rounds didn’t have the same peaks, but it was good enough for fifth in the points – a marked improvement on his 13th in WSK SMS.

Before his graduation to senior karts he also did CotF, which showed off the strong pace he carried into the CIK-FIA meeting despite coming 22nd in the two-round series.

Taponen was fourth fastest in qualifying for his OK debut in the WSK Open Cup, but found the racing far more difficult as he crashed in his first two heats and final. Knowing what to expect when he returned to track for round two, he was much better in races and an overall podium bagged him fourth in the cup.

Arvid Lindblad BRITAIN/SWEDEN 13y/o
OKJ WSK Super Master Series champion, Champions of the Future champion, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship

Photo: WSK / Mario Perrucca

Oliver Rowland’s Anglo-Swedish protege picked up a lot of silverware in his second season of junior karting, which he spent primarily with the factory Kart Republic team of Dino Chiesa.

His worst result was 14th in the IAME Winter Cup in X30 Senior, but he was actually fifth on track before a bumper penalty.

The results rolled in on OK karts, with fifth in the WSK Champions Cup being followed by third in the South Garda Winter Cup. In WSK SMS he won the title by a massive 138 points, always qualifying in the top two in his group, taking 12 heat wins, three pre-final wins and two of the four finals in the series.

Set-up issues held him back in qualifying and the heats for the WSK Euro Series opener, but he ended up sixth in the final. Before the rest of the Euro Series season was Zuera’s CotF warm-up, which he won, and its CIK-FIA European Championship round, in which he swept to four heat wins but was only fifth in the final.

He set the fastest lap at Sarno, but was third in the final, and was a stronger driver at Wackersdorf to win the final but he wasn’t to be European champion. In the Euro Series finale, he won the heats, pre-final and final to jump to fourth in the points.

The second CotF round preceded the CIK-FIA World Championship, and an easy run to pole and four heat wins suggested Lindblad may well be unbeatable in the final. He wasn’t, falling to ninth in the closing laps, but he did become champion.

He “didn’t make things easy” with 33rd in world championship qualifying, yet won his first heat and made it to sixth on the final grid. In the race he fought his way onto Slater’s tail in soaking conditions, and passed him on the final lap. A bumper tap copped a penalty, and Slater banged wheels to reclaim first – sending Christian Ho into the mud as he made it three-wide. With two corners to go Lindblad made an aggressive pass, but a corner later Slater did the same to finish 0.075s ahead.

The penalty dropped Lindblad to fifth, and to compound things he then finished second again to Slater in WSK Open Cup.

10 more to watch…

Photo: Matthew Higgins

Joe Turney returned to karting as a factory Tony Kart driver after last year’s half-season in British F4, and utilised his experience well to win the South Garda Winter Cup, finish second in the CIK-FIA World Championship and Champions of the Future, third in the European Championship and WSK Euro Series and fourth in WSK SMS.

Although her year made headlines for her crash with Antonelli, Maya Weug still impressed and made the final four of the FIA’s new Ferrari Driver Academy-affiliated Girls on Track Rising Stars programme.

Sauber juniors Christian Ho and Ugo Ugochukwu starred in OKJ, with Ho finishing fourth in the world championship after his off and third in the WSK Champions Cup at the start of the year. Team-mate Ugochukwu was European champion, second in CotF and fifth in WSK SMS.

Potentially the next Carlos Sainz Jr is Matthew Higgins, who is son of 10-time US rally champion David Higgins. The Manx-Welsh teenager raced primarily in Rotax Junior karts this year, and won the British championship and the Rotax Festival. He also came fifth in the Kartmasters GP, and was 11th in Britain’s X30 Junior championship too.

His occasional rival in Britain was Daniel Guinchard, who came in at the end of the Rotax Junior season and finished 35th. He had a lot of success abroad in those karts, coming third in Benelux’s first Kick Off competition, second in the Euro Winter Cup and then winning the end-of-year International Trophy.

Guinchard’s form in X30 Junior wasn’t bad either, and he came fourth in the final of the IAME Euro Series round he entered. He then raced OKJ in Germany too, finsihing fifth in the national championship and winning the parallel ADAC Kart Masters title.

Photo: South Garda Karting

Lauritz Sachse was a breakout from Denmark this year, coming eighth in Sweden’s highly competitive OKJ championship and winning the equivalent title in the Swedish Kart League, while Emirati Rashid Al Dhaheri ended his Mini karting career with victory in the South Garda Winter Cup and third in the Champions Cup before stepping up to OKJ and improving massively over the year. He ended 2020 with 13th in the CIK-FIA World Championship and 14th in the Open Cup.

The stars he left behind in Mini karting included Rene Lammers, who won the WSK Euro Series title, and Open Cup champion Maciej Gladysz.

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The post The top karting stars of 2020 appeared first on Formula Scout.

The CIK-FIA World and European championships are the main focus of the karting world, and champions are invited to the same prize giving gala as the winners of Formula 1, Formula 2 and Formula E. That’s not to say that’s the only location of talent in the karting world though, with the WSK-organised events focused in Italy always providing a hotbed for top drivers, and several national championships are rivalling the continental series for talent, if not drama.

Lorenzo Travisanutto ITALY 20y/o
CIK-FIA World & European champion – OK, WSK Euro Series champion – OK, South Garda Winter Cup winner – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

It may have been the fourth season in the OK class for Travisanutto, but he followed his Nico Rosberg-backed domination of 2018 with an even more convincing monopoly of trophies this year with the support of crack sportscar team HTP Motorsport.

Leaving Rosberg also meant departing the factory Kart Republic setup, although Travisanutto teamed up with CV Performance Group to continue racing its karts for 2019.

Travisanutto packed in practically every race in the category he could, starting with WSK’s Super Master Series. He won the first final at Adria from seventh on the grid, and was pipped to a second success by Dexter Patterson at Lonato, who was taking revenge after Travisanutto beat him in the South Garda Winter Cup. Sixth place finishes in the remaining two Super Master Series finals, after less than spectacular heat results, dropped him to third in the standings.

He matched that result in the lengthier German championship, losing the title there by prioritising the clashing CIK-FIA European season finale, where added a second continental crown to the WSK Euro Series one he secured the month before.

His biggest success was the CIK-FIA World Championship, won for the second time in a row. It was the ninth time karting’s biggest trophy has had a multiple-time winner, but it didn’t come easy. Juho Valtanen started from pole, and sprinted away in the first half of the final. Travisanutto tracked him down and muscled his way past, but was under pressure until the final few laps.

The end of the year brought another change of team for Travisanutto as he linked up with the famous Tony Kart brand, rounding out a podium lock-out with Pedro Hiltbrand and Joe Turney at the WSK Final Cup.

Marijn Kremers NETHERLANDS 21y/o
CIK-FIA World champion – KZ, 2nd in USA SuperNationals – KZ, 3rd in WSK Euro Series – KZ2

Photo: KSP Reportages

A successful but under the radar career in shifter karts blew up for Kremers in 2019, and ended with a graduation to British Formula 4 with Carlin in the Feed shootout organised by 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

The bedrock of his success was continuing a long relationship with Birel ART, which had a management restructuring pre-season and ran Kremer in junior categories as well as his three seasons in the top-level KZ karts. He warmed up for the big competitions by returning to KZ2s in the South Garda Winter Cup and WSK Super Master Series, both which he finished fourth in, and the WSK Euro Series, where he was third.

While he only managed eighth in the CIK-FIA European championship, he was in a grid packed with drivers who were either far older or even more experienced than he was, as shifter karts often attract ‘career’ karters. Birel team-mate Alex Irlando, who finished sixth, was the only other driver of similar experience fighting in the top 10 as frequently as Kremers was.

The single-event world championship was where Kremers moved into the spotlight. He was rapid in qualifying at Lonato, then took a second place and two wins in his heats. This put him on pole for the final, and he fended off an early challenge from Adrien Renaudin to comfortably lead the first quarter of 25-lap race.

Renaudin then got through, and opted for a defensive approach to keeping the lead. Kremers reclaimed the place with a late dive at the chicane, then used a gear change to cut across Renaudin to prevent him from coming back at him. Thereon he was untroubled, taking Birel’s first shifter world title since 2000 and a rare global triumph for a driver early in his career.

Thomas ten Brinke NETHERLANDS 14y/o
CIK-FIA World champion – OKJ, 2nd in WSK Euro Series – OKJ, 3rd in CIK-FIA European championship – OKJ

Photo: Gregory Lenormand / DPPI

In a feature on top karting team Ricky Flynn Motorsport earlier this year, Formula Scout pointed out ten Brinke as the star of the team’s potent six-strong line-up in the OK Junior class. The Dutch teenager, whose father Bernhard is one of Fernando Alonso’s Dakar Rally team-mates, won last year’s German Junior title and followed it with heat wins and third overall in the WSK Champions Cup.

Otherwise, his 2019 didn’t start in style. He was fifth fastest qualifier for the South Garda Winter Cup, and took three heat podiums to earn semi-final pole. Victory put him on the final front row, but an on-track dispute led to a spin and his kart being mounted.

Runner-up spot in the WSK Super Master Series standings was lost to an incident that prevented him making the final of the final round, but he was a convincing second place in the WSK Euro Series – nobody was going to beat Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

On the biggest stage of all, the CIK-FIA World Championship at Alaharma, it was ten Brinke who was the class of the field. He was put in the same qualifying group as Antonelli and beat him, then won five of his six heats. Second place in his fifth heat behind Nikita Bedrin was the lowest he ever placed, as he dominated the final from pole.

The events at Alahrama followed a dismal end to his CIK-FIA European campaign. Despite retiring from one of his heats, he was in second after round one of four, and moved into the lead in round two with some podium finishes. Qualifying wasn’t kind to ten Brinke, and charging performances in the penultimate round wasn’t enough to keep the lead. He pulled the short straw again in the Le Mans title decider, going ninth fastest and 63rd overall in qualifying. The top driver from his session was 39th.

From 21st on the grid, he breached the top 10 once with a podium, but was eighth in his final heat before overtaking under yellow flags got him penalised. It was his second offence, meaning he missed the final and ensured he wouldn’t win the title.

Emilien Denner FRANCE 17y/o
FIA Int. Super Cup winner – KZ2, Trofeo Andrea Margutti winner – KZ2, 2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship – KZ2

Photo: KSP Reportages

There is feverish expectation over what 17-year-old Denner could do on his car racing debut in the Toyota Racing Series next January, after just three seasons of competitive karting.

His 2017 ended with 13th in the WSK Final Cup’s KZ2 classification. One year later he was runner-up, after taking third in the CIK-FIA European Championship, where he was disqualified from the first round final but dominated the second.

It was clear something big was on the horizon going into 2019 as he remained in the category, although the winter events didn’t suggest too much, as the CPB Sport driver finished 11th in the South Garda Winter Cup and 12th in WSK Super Master Series.

Eight place in the WSK Euro Series against very experienced opposition was encouraging, and started a strong run of form. Denner was the benchmark man in April’s Trofeo Andrea Margutti, and took four podiums and an impressive fourth in the standings in the 10-race German shifter championship on a Sodi kart rarely used by top teams.

The quality of opposition was a little lower for the FIA International Super Cup, but that just gave Denner the excuse to wipe the floor. He topped the 120-strong qualifying classification, swept all six of his heats and dominated the final.

A CIK-FIA European title would’ve also been his were it not for one incident. In the final at Wackersdorf, a forceful move on Senna van Walstijn led to Denner receiving a 10-second penalty and meant his front fairing was out of place. Another penalty was due, and while he did win the final at Sarno, the points lost at Wackersdorf was the exact amount needed for the title.

Denner joined the KZ runners for the USA’s end-of-year SuperNationals, and finished fourth in the final with fastest lap.

Kajus Siksnelis LITHUANIA 14y/o
FIA Karting Academy Trophy winner, 3rd in CIK-FIA World Championship – OKJ, 10th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OKJ

Photo: KSP Reportages

FIA Formula Two race-winner Kazim Vasiliauskas stands out as Lithuania’s greatest F1 prospect so far, but the young Siksnelis may be changing that statement in the future as he makes quick progress up the karting ladder.

The reigning Lithuanian national champion was supported through 2019 by Simas Juodvirsis, the winner of the 2012 CIK-FIA European Championship in KZ2 karts. Siksnelis was racing primarily in the OK Junior category for Swedish team Ward Racing, and it took a while for his confidence to build on the international stage.

Siksnelis made it to 10th in the final of the first European round at Angerville, proof of his learning curve as his best heat result was sixth. At Genk he had a lowkey final from a low starting spot; a heat one retirement neutralising a win and last-lap defeat in two other heats. Third in the Kristianstad final came before a disastrous Le Mans finale, where he was 14th in his best heat.

The total failure in France proved a blessing for Siksnelis, who had the CIK-FIA World Championship and FIA Karting Academy Trophy finale up next. Big results were up for grabs in both, and there was Lithuanian interest because of it.

He was sixth fastest in his world championship qualifying session, which was where he finished his heats when the track was dry. Wet weather at Alaharma threw a curveball in that Siksnelis struggled with, and he started 16th for the final. Within a lap he’d made it to 10th, and picked off drivers lap-by-lap to reach fourth. Keeping a cool head earned him third on the final tour.

That confidence boost helped Siksnelis win the Academy Trophy. Penalties and changing weather at Wackersdorf put him on the back foot, but he upped his game at Sarno, and second place in the Lonato finale took him from fifth to first in the standings. He ended the year with 14th in the FIA Motorsport Games Karting Slalom, and will move up to OK karts in 2020.

Christian Ho SINGAPORE 13y/o
2nd in FIA Karting Academy Trophy, 2nd in German Junior championship, 11th in CIK-FIA World Championship – OKJ

Ho was one of the youngest in OK Junior karts this year, and he got a great 13th birthday present in October by becoming a Sauber junior. He’d already set some age-related records in the year, as well as setting landmark results for Asian karters.

At the end of 2018, Ho made his OKJ debut and found it physically tough, but his pace was clear to see and he was snapped up by RFM for the end of the season – immediately being thrown into the deep end in cold and wet conditions (which Ho admits to always struggling in) and having to borrow some of Zane Maloney’s old kit.

The results were promising, but it did look like the physicality of the more powerful karts was counting against Ho as 2019 began. When he returned to the wet for WSK Super Masters Series he looked far more comfortable, performing well in his heat but repeated mistakes or lack of pace in qualifying meant he was never able to feature at the front if he made it to the finals.

When qualifying did improve, Ho was nervous from starting at the front, and there were many mistakes early on. More track experience – and warmer temperatures – helped Ho, and he came into his own in the German Junior championship. He was on the podium in every final race, three of which he won, and was second in the points despite missing a fifth of the season.

The pressure was low there, but when high it seemed to get to Ho in the CIK-FIA European Championship. In the FIA Academy Trophy it didn’t, and after a topsy-turvy first weekend he went on a winning run to become runner-up. His world championship weekend also had errors, but Ho was one of the fastest in changing conditions and 11th place was a good result.

Ho joined Sauber days before the WSK Open Cup but instantly gelled with his new team, setting pole and racing to fifth in the final. Tyre struggles meant he didn’t match that result in round two, but gathered more valuable experience ahead of 2020.

Mathilda Olsson SWEDEN 18y/o
Rotax Max Euro Trophy champion – Senior, 9th in Rotax Max International Trophy – Senior, 13th in IAME Euro Series – X30 Senior

Few international karting events are won as convincingly as Mathilda Olsson’s Rotax Euro Trophy crown this year, in the spec-engined rival category to OK, and while it wasn’t a result she repeated in higher calibre events, it was undeniably impressive.

Olsson finished third in the 2018 Euro Trophy for Strawberry Racing, and knew where she needed to improve to be champion. She began her season in the Rotax Euro Open at Genk, where she was consistently on the pace but heat results of third and 12th left her ninth on the grid for the first final. She charged through to second in that, then repeated the result in race two.

The season began proper at Adria, where she was fastest in pre-event testing, free practice and qualifying. The split-session format meant she didn’t start from pole, but she won her heats anyway then dominated the two points-paying final races.

Kristianstad was much of the same, but against some additional adversity. A shocker of a qualifying session on home soil left her 21st fastest, but she charged through to sixth in both of her heats. That made her job in the finals a little easier, and she flew past the field to win the first race. The second was a challenge from the front, as she had Axel Saarniala literally rubbing her wheels throughout. At the very final corner he found a way through, denying Olsson a perfect score by 0.173 seconds.

The Wackersdorf season finale also began with qualifying trouble; she set half the number of laps as her rivals and qualified 14th. Admittedly she was only one second off pole and had already won the title, but it was a frustration all the same. Olsson was up to second two-thirds into heat one and missed out on victory by 0.117s, ending up sixth on the grid for the final.

Rhys Hunter pushed the limits of defending to try to deny Olsson victory but failed. It was the reverse in race two, with Olsson’s defensive work falling just short. Title success brought her a Rotax Grand Finals ticket, in which she classified 22nd.

Dexter Patterson BRITAIN 16y/o
WSK Super Master Series winner – OK, 3rd in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 6th in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

The last Scot to race for Sauber was a descendant of Robert the Bruce, and Patterson has been using the same fighting spirit to star on karting’s world stage in his second year at the OK level, even if his results haven’t told the full story.

On paper, Patterson’s season peaked at its beginning with the WSK Super Masters Series title. He was comfortably best in the wet at Adria, outwitted Travisanutto to win at Lonato, shook off an awful first lap to finish second at La Conca, and won everything at Sarno.

His rivalry with Travisanutto went in the latter’s favour in the South Garda Winter Cup and the WSK Euro Series, which was generally a messy time on-track for Patterson (especially in heat races) but still resulted in third in the standings.

It was the CIK-FIA competitions that Sauber wanted Patterson to focus on, and when the time came he did just that. He was unlucky not be on pole for the first European round at Angerville, but still led every single lap of four of his five heats and was unchallenged in the final. The heat where he fumbled just happened to be the one where he was up against Travisanutto. Sauber – and the Kart Republic team it emblazons – praised Patterson’s performance on the demanding French circuit.

Travisanutto thrashed everyone at Genk, and a new-tyre run by Patterson netted him a distant second place. Two brilliant heat wins were compounded by the type of clashes that yardstick driver Travisanutto was avoiding, and while he left Kristianstad in the lead thanks to fourth in the final, it was a case of ‘what if’ having fallen from pole to seventh on lap after bumping his rival.

By the time of the Le Mans finale he had conceded his lead, and then the title after a failed move on Kobe Pauwels put him out on the spot. The world championship six weeks later didn’t serve justice, as Patterson struggled in qualifying then opted for caution as he rose through to finish sixth. There were few trophies, but Patterson raced hard against the very best.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli ITALY 13y/o
WSK Super Master Series, Euro Series, Italian, Final Cup & Open Cup winner – OKJ, 2nd in USA SuperNationals – KA100 Jr

Photo: KSP Reportages

Mercedes F1 and Rosberg protege Antonelli sometimes looked unstoppable in the OK Junior arena this year, and kicked off 2019 with three major trophies in a row: the South Garda Winter Cup, and WSK’s Super Master Series and Euro Series.

To warm up for those events he entered the WSK Champions Cup, where he was favourite to win but got shuffled to fourth.

The WSK Super Master Series title came despite failing to make the final in the Sarno title decider when he clashed dramatically with rival Thomas ten Brinke, and an underwhelming start to the Euro Series somehow ended up in him also winning the Italian title.

This was all, for reminder, completed as a rookie to the class as 13-year-old Antonelli was a star of Mini karts last year.

Most drivers concentrate on the big CIK-FIA titles, and this was where Antonelli’s more experienced rivals made their mark over the diminutive Italian. Marcus Amand was the surprise driver who beat Antonelli to the European title, with the latter’s early no-scores counting against him despite a late podium run.

The world championship was arguably a stronger performance from Antonelli, despite finishing several places lower in fifth, as he put together a more complete weekend under higher pressure. He won three of his heats after qualifying fifth out of 100 cars, just 0.165s off what would have been a headline-grabbing pole position, and raced confidently throughout.

He ended his year with more WSK competitions, winning the Final and Open Cup, and was pipped at the finish line to success in America in the USA SuperNationals’ KA100 Junior category.

Gabriele Mini ITALY 14y/o
2nd in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK, 2nd in WSK Champions Cup – OK, 4th in WSK Euro Series – OK

Photo: KSP Reportages

Nicolas Todt’s latest protege didn’t have the headline results he enjoyed in 2018, but it was still a stellar rookie season.

Mini stepped up to OK karts with the Parolin Racing Kart team, and immediately made an impact by finishing second in the WSK Champions Cup. At first it wasn’t clear what that impact was, as Mini was slowest of all in qualifying.

He turned that into eighth place in his first ever race, and followed that up with a fourth. The inexperience was still clear to see, with Mini ending the first lap of the next race 19 places down and having to recover his way up to 15th. His progress in the pre-final took him to fifth, and he beat some big names to take second in the Cup itself.

The first wins came in the heats of the South Garda Winter Cup, and Mini’s name was already being considered for title contention in the competitions he entered afterwards. He was behind four highly-rated returning drivers in WSK Super Master Series, roughly the maximum he would have been expected to achieve. In WSK’s Euro Series he went one better, but yielded a slow start before dominating the Adria season finale, something rookies rarely manage.

Momentum was starting to build as Mini got more comfortable with OK karts, consistently being among the small group of names winning races. He wasn’t quite a title threat in the CIK-FIA European Championship, mostly because he didn’t collect points from the heats, but was still second in the standings thanks to coming strong in the finals.

He was bang on the pace in the important part of the competition in the world championship too, and he really could have been a victory contender if he managed to bed himself into weekends quicker and ensure better starting spots.

With his 15th birthday looming next March, Mini has already topped a Formula 4 test with Prema and has been assessed by the Ferrari Driver Academy.

10 more to watch…

Harry Thompson was being groomed by Red Bull for a junior single-seater future until last month, when the Briton unexpectedly left the F1 team’s ranks to join up with Kart Republic for a season in KZ karts next year. The 15-year-old was third in this year’s OK world championship with RFM, and won the German title for the second year in a row.

Another with significant patronage is Kirill Smal, who is SMP Racing’s latest wonderkid. He finished just behind Thompson in the world championship this year as an OK rookie, a highlight of an otherwise under-the-radar season with Ward.

The driver who sat between them and the dominant Travisanutto on the biggest stage was Nico Rosberg’s protege Taylor Barnard. His results were more consistently impressive, winning the WSK Champions and Open Cups, finishing second in the Super Master Series and fourth in the CIK-FIA European Championship. He also starred on X30 Senior karts in his free time.

Swede Dino Beganovic was another making swift progress in OK karts. He won his national title and was sixth in CIK-FIA European in his rookie season, as well as finishing runner-up in the equivalent WSK-organised series. His Travisanutto-rivalling pace in the latter won him the Italian title and, like Mini, he’s been testing F4 cars with Prema and the Ferrari Driver Academy.

British teenager Guy Cunnington stepped up to Rotax Max Senior karts this year, the cheaper equivalent of OK, and starred at home and abroad. He won his home title, and came from ninth on the grid to briefly win the prestigious Grand Final at Sarno by 0.003s in one of the most dramatic finishes to a karting event in history.

Cunnington had overtaken Saarniala for the lead on the final lap, but the Finn came back at him at the last corner, deliberately going wide to carry more speed. The pair crossed the finish line side-by-side, with the timing beam declaring Cunnington winner. There was no photographic evidence to tally up with the timing though, and so the result was decided on the drivers’ fastest laps instead. The win was handed to Saarniala.

Emil Skaras applied his KZ2 experience better than ever this year, winning the CIK-FIA European title, coming home as runner-up in the Swedish championship, and finishing behind Denner and Campos Racing recruit David Vidales in the International Super Cup. He also cameoed in F4 South East Asia, where he took a pole and a win.

French-Finnish driver Marcus Amand – another with an esteemed F1 manager in Didier Coton – beat Antonelli to the CIK-FIA European title in OKJ kart. He was inconsistent elsewhere and sixth place in WSK Super Masters Series was his next best result.

A heavy schedule led to success for Emirati Jamie Day, who won the French Cup title against a full international field and was a frontrunner in every continental competition in Europe. He was sixth in both of the key CIK-FIA contests, and his partnership with Lennox Racing Team has led to a tie-up with Charles Leclerc’s new karting brand for 2020.

Day’s countryman Rashid Al Dhaheri, 11, was the star of Mini karts this year against the likes of Mercedes-backed Jamaican Alex Powell, convincingly winning the WSK Super Master Series and Euro Series titles for Parolin, and the Macau International Kart Grand Prix.

Similarly consistent in fighting with the best in OKJ contests was another SMP junior, Nikita Bedrin. The Tony Kart driver’s second season included second place in the WSK Final Cup, third in the WSK Euro Series and fifth in the CIK-FIA European Championship.

The post The top karting stars of 2019 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Robert Kubica was a source for inspiration long before the life-changing 2011 rally crash which split his Formula 1 career. With a year off the grid again for 2020, now is time to reflect on the example he has set

Hailing from a country without a motorsport pedigree, and a family that had to borrow money to fund his teenaged years in karting, was the smallest of hurdles in Robert Kubica’s career. The Pole, who turns 35 today, knows better than most in motorsport that the hardest career step is the last one, not the first.

From the very start, the Kubica attitude to motorsport was “do it properly, or don’t do it”, and was evident in his Formula 1 return with Williams this year. Alongside any budgetary shortfalls, it’s ultimately why he won’t be on the grid in 2020.

Through much of Kubica’s karting career, he raced using a plain helmet, overalls and kart, with the money saved on decoration being spent on tyres or other necessities. He lived cheap by sleeping in team tents or factories as well.

What really set Kubica apart from most of his peers though was his ambitions. At no point did he ever aspire to be a F1 driver, or a professional in any other discipline, only to be the best driver he could. Instilled in him by his father, and taken full-heartedly by the teenager, was the idea that above anything else he was racing against himself.

It’s a mentality that is hard to instil in young drivers who care almost solely about winning and F1, and even experienced single-seater aces like Dan Ticktum have admitted that when their self-focus has strayed it’s hurt their performances.

So disciplined was Kubica, he was able to harness his talent to the maximum and became one of the best in junior karting.

He was a three-time champion in Germany and Italy, which was the hub of the karting world, and beat future F1 world champions Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to become the first foreigner to win an Italian title. Bettering good friend Hamilton required some serious personal ingenuity, and showed Kubica was already an attentive student of motorsport.

Early into his first Italian campaign in 1998, Kubica was signed by kart manufacturer CRG in a role that allowed him to race for free. He also gained free mileage by bedding in engines for CRG teams, one of which included Rosberg. The technical requirement of that role meant he was driving at a strictly set pace for hours, and having that discipline from a young age has undoubtedly been of use in an era of F1 where driving under the limit for sustained periods of time has been of importance.

By focusing on his own performances, it made Kubica even more dedicated to what would later be his craft, although he was hesitant to start racing single-seaters after his one full year in senior karts proved to be a personal disappointment.

The thirst for proving to himself, and his father, that he could always do better is what later led Kubica to rallying.

Kubica stepped up to cars with RC Motorsport in both the Formula Renault Eurocup and Italian championship in 2001. He finished 14th in the Eurocup standings with one pole and a podium, and improved to seventh in 2002 in his one year as a Renault F1 junior. In Italy he was a title contender on his second attempt, and won at four circuits known for testing driver skill; Vallelunga, Pergusa, Spa and Imola.

His 2003 graduation to the F3 Euro Series with Prema started badly, as a scary road accident resulting in a heavily broken right arm that required intrusive surgery, titanium weights and debuting in the season’s fourth round at the Norisring street circuit. This didn’t dent Kubica’s aspirations, rather change them to performing as best he could around such a limitation.

Photo: Renault Sport / DPPI

Despite wearing a brace and being at a competitive disadvantage given he had less mileage than his rivals and the cars then still had gear sticks, Kubica qualified third on his debut and took a sizeable 4.155 second win, followed by second place in race two.

He didn’t see the overall podium again in-season, but did win the Sardinian F3 Masters. The results of his second season, with the Mercedes-Benz-supported Mucke Motorsport team, didn’t improve greatly but Kubica’s personal stock was still rising.

He demonstrated how much he’d improved when he joined Hamilton at Manor Motorsport for the Macau Grand Prix. After an interrupted first qualifying session where he only recorded a few laps, Kubica beat Hamilton to pole in Q2.

Kubica was passed on the run to Lisboa before a safety car period that occupied the first half of the race, and he then lost two more places. He struck back in the main race to finish runner-up.

As many drivers do now, Kubica returned to Macau after departing F3. This wasn’t because he wanted to go one better and win the event, as much as that was an attraction, rather he knew the challenge would likely improve his driving.

In 2005 his main focus was FR3.5 with Epsilon Euskadi. Once again, his talent was best displayed on street circuits, winning around Bilbao in addition to successes at Zolder and Oschersleben. He would have won at Valencia too were it not for a penultimate lap electrical failure, and an anti-roll bar washer that was 0.2mm too thin led to a charge from the back of the grid to sixth at Donington Park. The title was won with three races to spare, and he was promptly signed as Minardi F1 reserve.

He joined Carlin for his third Macau attempt, combated a loose seat to top Q1 and was runner-up for a second time.

Despite winning a major international title, reaching F1 was still not the measure of success that Kubica was giving himself, but he was targeting a move to GP2 for 2006. The result of his prize run in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning Renault F1 car at Barcelona in December changed that attitude somewhat.

Kubica arrived a few days early to the test to embed himself into the team; far larger than any he’d been in before. Despite his committed preparations, his “do it properly, or don’t do it” approach almost came to bite him as self doubt – amplified by trackside observation of seasoned F1 racers driving to the limit – led to Kubica questioning whether he could do a ‘proper’ job.

Every young driver has moments where they lose confidence, and Kubica’s occurred at what proved to be a critical point in his career. Once the helmet was on, that self doubt had to be left behind.

Kubica ran with the car restricted to eight of its 10 cylinders to mimic 2006 rule changes, and was satisfied by the progression from when he first sat in the car to when he left it a few hours later. BMW Sauber watched on and signed him to be its free practice driver; his lack of insistence on a future race seat being why IndyCar champion Dan Wheldon didn’t get the role.

In what was a radically different car, Kubica adapted quickly and was tasked with lots of development work – a role similar to that he performed for CRG in karting, but now with 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve being the beneficiary.

The season started in Bahrain with Kubica on top of the timesheet and a recommendation from Michelin, the former in part down to a rule for teams running third cars for free practice. The Pole’s consistently noteworthy performances thereon happened because he was always learning and focusing on his job rather than advertising his suitability for a race seat.

After four FP1 appearances, BMW was saying he would be race-ready before the end of the season, and he had become a Red Bull target. Kubica kept his head down, knowing that his work was influencing BMW’s race strategies, and therefore its results.

“I went there in 1997,” Kubica said before the Hungarian Grand Prix. “It was the only race I visited as a spectator. I said: I don’t like to watch and will never go to another unless I’m driving. I was 12, Jacques won, and now we’re working together.”

Shortly after, Kubica was called to replace Villeneuve, who was recuperating from a crash. He outqualified team-mate Nick Heidfeld to start ninth on a circuit he’d last seen in 2002, and raced to an unhappy seventh. He was then disqualified for being underweight, but the performance was enough for BMW to decide that Kubica would remain in the seat thereon.

Kubica made the podium in the Italian GP, his third race, and remained with BMW for three more years. Self-improvement was always the main goal, especially after his first win at the 2008 Canadian GP prompted BMW to switch focus to its 2009 car. While Kubica says he is “lucky” to be mostly unemotional, he describes Montreal as the “best and worst racing day of my life”.

Switching to Renault in 2010, with a car as competitive as the BMW of 2006, showed the scale of Kubica’s improvements. Several times he put himself in victory contention, most famously at Monaco, and he considers it his most complete season.

Behind the scenes, he had been supplementing his time in F1 by buying his own rally car and testing it during his free time. His relentless inward search for success, and the marginal gains of professional sport, drew him to the conclusion that he would find or improve skills away from F1 that would not only make him a better F1 driver, but that his rivals wouldn’t have.

By mid-2010 there was talk of a World Rally Championship appearance, but that was not really the appeal for Kubica. Rallying was fun and helpful, especially so in competition, but escaping the circus of professional sport was also “vital for his sanity”. His hobbies of bowling, poker and snooker carried the same appeal, and of course carried their own marginal gains.

Kubica believes rallying had a measurable positive effect on his 2010 points tally, especially from races in changing weather conditions, but he “paid the price” for his pursuit of improvement in his infamous Ronde di Andora crash in February 2011.

It almost ended his life, indefinitely ended his career, and made F1 teams vow to not let their drivers take the same risks. Ferrari had signed Kubica for 2012 and put a rally ban in his contract, but F1 seems to have relaxed as Valtteri Bottas goes rallying. More telling of Kubica’s influence, young drivers like Lukas Dunner are now taking to the stages to find an advantage.

The recovery from the multiple fractures to his right arm, leg and hand – which were also victims of his 2003 crash and fortunately were not torn apart entirely so muscle mass and nerves could grow back – initially required Kubica to be put in an induced coma after surgery took place, but once again it wasn’t the first step that was the hardest.

“I want to get back on the track stronger than ever, because after these accidents you aren’t what you were before, you improve,” Kubica said in one of his first post-crash interviews with Gazzetta dello Sport.

After a week, sensation returned to his hand and gave it limited functionality, fuelling expectation that rehabilitation would begin and he would return to F1 before the end of the year. Being an elite athlete was speeding up Kubica’s progress, but he ended up in hospital for three months and having more surgery before rehab, yet even in July was targeting a 2012 return.

Not all surgeries resulted in improvements in his condition, and the physical and mental toll of repeating the “fighting” of his recovery dominated him for the first year-and-a-half. Kubica kept at it though, and his determination to be fit enough to sit in a racing car once again has certainly been an inspiration for young drivers like Billy Monger and Juan Manuel Correa,

Adapting to his physical limitation wasn’t just a racing-centred problem, as it required swapping all activities he’d usually do with his right hand over to his left, as well as tackling situations requiring the use of both. This was painful for more than just the heavy exercising of muscles, and his manager Daniel Morelli described him in late 2011 as being “nervous”.

A return to rallying, despite the risks, was the most successful part of Kubica’s rehab. His career-long inward search for improvement was now a crucial asset in his physical and mental recovery as well as for honing his racing ability around his new limitations, and he ended up winning a WRC2 title, a European Rally Championship round and finishing 12th in the 2015 WRC standings as a privateer in addition to being a far healthier and happier person.

One key skill he honed there was patience. Rallying is a discipline built on experience, requiring patience to be the best. Having to accept that fact helped Kubica’s patience in recovery, and is a manageable skill any young driver would benefit by.

In 2017 he finally tested an F1 car, fuelling a motivation to prove himself again in a world where there were people being bigger critics than he was to himself. Once again, and this an important note in any recovery process, by reaching this new milestone it had reminded him how much he’d lost. But the F1 bug was now there, and little was going to stop him.

He became Williams’ reserve driver for 2018, then was promoted to a race seat this year, putting him firmly under the spotlight. Critics pointing to being outpaced by rookie team-mate George Russell or any error as proof his injuries and lengthy F1 absence have made him a worse driver miss the point according to Kubica. He’s hidden how much his physical limitation really holds him back, and brought his performance up to a whole new level to compensate for that.

With every test he had before 2019, in cars barely recognisable to those he previously raced in, he became more comfortable. The higher stakes of having his end goal of a race return in sight bred more self doubt though, and with the final hurdle being the toughest it’s important to remember how far one has come to reach that point.

Kubica’s personal target is still to improve, and only he will know whether his one season back in F1 – the highlight of which was a points finish at the German GP – was a failure. For 2020 he may race in the DTM, but the F1 paddock is still hungry for Kubica’s mentality and what it can bring to a team, especially so in a managerial role.

Prior to his race return, Kubica brushed off the managerial interest on F1’s podcast, citing he was “very demanding on myself” and would only be happy “when I’m really on the high level”. That’s exactly what any team would look for.

If Kubica can pull off a third F1 comeback in his late-30s, either in or out of the car, then it will only happen if he believes he can do it properly. And if he doesn’t appear on the grid again, then there is a huge number of drivers who can credit the Pole in their journey to the top; whether it be driving Kubica karts, learning from and being inspired by his recovery, or even forming an interest in racing from watching him drive.

World Series photos courtesy of Renault Sport / DPPI

The post How Robert Kubica set the perfect example for young drivers appeared first on Formula Scout.

Nico Rosberg, the 2016 Formula 1 world champion, has set up his own young driver academy supporting two kart racers.

The?Rosberg Young Drivers Academy aims to “find and support new talent in motorsport”.

Taylor Barnard, a 13-year-old from Britain who is racing in the OK Junior class for the first time this year, is joined by Italian Lorenzo Travisanutto, the winner of the WSK Super Master Series and Final Cup in the OK class in 2016, who finished third in the CIK-FIA European championship last year.

Rosberg has set up the academy with the assistance of Dino Chiesa, his former karting mentor and runner of the McLaren and Mercedes-backed MBM team that Rosberg and rival Lewis Hamilton drove for in 2000 and ’01. Backing has also come from oil company Petronas, a long-time partner of the Mercedes F1 team that Rosberg used to drive for.

“Dino is the best in the karting world and I believe in the performance of Dino’s own Kart Republic Chassis which we will be using,” said Rosberg.

“He was my boss in all my international karting years. The most successful year was when Lewis and I were in Team MBM and Dino lead us to great successes.

“We have been friends ever since, so it is special to now join forces to support the stars of the future. We look forward to taking on the karting world together”.

Chiesa added: “Today the development of a driver is not only turning the steering wheel. It’s more than that. It’s more about engineering, marketing and media.

“That’s why I believe that Nico and I are a good mix to support talent.”

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In light of recent news, we thought it would be a good moment to travel back ten years to a time when new Mercedes teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton were just starting out in cars…

It’s been well documented that Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton were teammates in international karting back in 2000, but rather than go back to then we’re going to look back ten years ago to 2002. That year they were both contesting their first full seasons in single-seaters. Rosberg was in Formula BMW ADAC in Germany, while Hamilton was racing Formula Renault UK.

With nine wins from the 20 races, Rosberg won the title at the first attempt. Hamilton meanwhile finished up third in his championship, behind champion third-year driver Danny Watts and current DTM ace Jamie Green, who was also in his rookie season out of karts.

Elsewhere ten years ago, Sebastien Bourdais won the F3000 title ahead of Giorgio Pantano and Tomas Enge – who would have been champion had he not failed a drugs test. Former F1 driver Ricardo Zonta won the World Series by Renault ahead of Franck Montagny. Ralph Firman won the Formula Nippon title ahead of his F1 chance with Jordan.

In F3, the British title was won by Robbie Kerr ahead of Australian Jaguar driver James Courtney and Renault ace Heikki Kovalaianen. Gary Paffett won the last German F3 Championship before it merged with the French Championship (won by Tristan Gommendy) to form the Euro Series. Nelson Piquet Jr won the South American title.

Eric Salignon beat Neel Jani to win the Formula Renault Eurocup as well as finishing second to Alexandre Premat in the French series. Christian Klien was German champion ahead of Bruno Spengler and Esteban Guerrieri, while Jose Maria Lopez pipped Robert Kubica to the Italian title.

The post Retrospective: 2002 appeared first on Formula Scout.